Government, partners target to expand school feeding programme

Education Cabinet Secretary, Migos Ogamba recently announced the country aims to increase the number of learners benefiting from school meals from 1.9 million in 2023 to over 10 million learners by 2030.

Among the partners that are on board to realise the target is Food4Education which has joined the race to transform learning by providing thousands of school children with meals - to ensure students stay in class, boosting attendance and performance.

As the continent marks Africa Day of School Feeding today, Shalom Ndiku, Head of Policy and Partnerships at Food4Educations believes that no child should go to school hungry.

Ndiku explains that they provide affordable meals to learners through a centralised cooking system – where food is prepared and delivered to schools.

“We have a kitchen in Nairobi which makes food daily to serve 60 thousand learners, we also have others which serve between 10,000 - 20,000 daily,” says Ndiku.

The feeding program has also boosted the retention rate of learners and performance since the student’s concentration has been on the rise.

One of the organization’s biggest innovations is Tap2Eat, a cashless payment system that allows parents to pay for school meals through mobile money. Children simply tap a smart wristband to get their meals, ensuring efficiency and accountability.

In Nairobi, public primary school students are benefiting from the Tap2Eat program, which provides meals at a subsidised cost of KSh5 per meal, a program those parents especially from the slum areas support.

“Tap2eat is like a wallet where a parent loads cash using a mobile payment platform into their child’s account, it has enabled us to collect data on trends on what food learners like most and also the gender that eats most,” explains Ndiku.