Paolo Romero
The Philippine Star
The government will continue to provide education and nutrition to schoolchildren by allocating P3.3 billion in next year’s national budget for the food-for-school programs of two agencies, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said Friday.
By luring children from poor families to attend classes, government hopes to “arrest school dropout rates and dropping weights of children,†Andaya said.
He said the inclusion of P2.58 billion and P766 million in the 2008 budget of the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for their school nutritionist is meant to defeat “illiteracy and malnutrition in one blow.â€
DepEd reported that the program is succeeding as the “proportion of children with below normal nutritional classification status decreased from 20 percent last year to 17 percent this year.â€
The program is on its second year of implementation.
For next year, the DepEd will be given P2.58 billion to provide breakfast to at least 1,548,954 Grade 1 pupils in 5th and 6th class municipalities.
The meal will be a mix of noodles, milk, biscuits, and other food sourced locally like rice-based meals, fruits and vegetables.
On the other hand, the P766 million that will be allocated to DSWD will be used to provide milk, eggs, coco pan de sal and vegetable noodles to 326,748 children in day care centers.
Andaya said the feeding program aims to “increase the holding power of schools†over children prone to skipping classes due to hunger and the need to work so they can augment the family income.
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