Future of Mid-Day Meals

Author(s): Shashi Bhushan Singh

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 39, No. 9 (Feb. 28 - Mar. 5, 2004), pp. 998-1000
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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 Discussion__
Future of Mid-Day
SHASHI BHUSIIAN SINGH
Jean DrezeandAparajitaGoyal'spaper
('Futureof Mid-Day Meals', EPW,
November1, 2003 ) talks about various
advantagesthe scheme has for realising
the goal towardthe universalisationof
elementaryeducation.The authorshave
also pointedout its shortcomingsbut ul-
timatelytheyhavecometo theconclusion
that"withadequateresourcesandquality
safeguards, mid-daymealscanplaya major
roleinimprovingschoolattendance, elimi-
nating classroom hunger and fostering
social equity"[Dreze and Goyal 2003].
Whilenobodycandenythefactthatevery
measuregivessomebenefitsto thepeople,
the importantpoint is that in a country
whereeducationsectoris facinga scarcity
of resources,whichis therightplacewhere
resourcesshouldbe utilised?Secondly,by
allocatinga totally differentrole to an
institutionotherthanforwhichit hasbeen
created,how it will affect the well-being
of that institution?
Though mid-day meals can play 'di-
verse personaland social roles' the au-
thorshave chosenthreecases for special
treatment. Thefirstbenefitof themid-day
mealschemeis thatit increasesthe parti-
cipationof the studentsin the school.The
authorswrite "one basic contributionof
mid-daymeal is to boost school enrol-
ment.Goingbeyondthat,mid-daymeals
may be expectedto enhancepupil atten-
danceon a dailybasis.School mealsmay
alsoenhancelearningachievements,in so
faras 'classroomhunger'underminesthe
ability of pupils to concentrateand per-
haps even affects their learning skills.
Finallya well-organisedschool mealcan
have intrinsiceducationalvalue, in addi-
tionto whatit contributesto routinelearn-
ing processesequity"[Dreze and Goyal
2003]. The first problemis thatauthors'
assumptionis basedon the premisesthat
the non-availabilityof food to the child
is responsiblefor the poor attendancein
the school. But the reality is somewhat
different.Variousstudieshaveconfirmed
998
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Meals
that it is the povertyof the parentsthat
is responsiblefor poor attendanceand
earlydropoutfromschools.Thoughthere
are studies, which talk about 'nowhere
children'meaningthey are neitherin the
schoolnoraretheyengagedinotherincome
generatingactivities,in reality,thisis not
the case. These children are required
periodically,forexample,duringthebusy
agricultural season,andthishamperstheir
education.Inthepoorfamilythechildnot
onlylooksaftertheyoungerchildbutalso
escorts the animals for grazing. While
doingthishealsotakessomeanimalsfrom
othersfor grazingandearnsmoney.The
;'charwahaschool' in Biharthoughit did
not succeed,becauseof the apathyof the
politiciansandadministrators, was estab-
lished keeping this fact in mind. In the
schoola child getsone-timemeals,which
is nothing comparedto amounts/he is
earningby stayingoutsidethe schooling
system.
Thesecondbenefitof theschemeis that
mid-daymeals"makesit possiblenotonly
to raisetheir(children)intakeof calories
and proteins,but also to provide nutri-
tional supplements such as iron and
iodine,whichneedto be ingestedin small
doses over a periodof time"[Drezeand
Goyal 2003]. This assumptionis far
fetched.The authorsneed not go too far
to findoutthenutritiousaspectof thefood
servedto thestudentcommunity.InDelhi
Universityhostels whereone has to pay
for the food, mosttimesthe supplierstry
to dump the rottengroceriesand vege-
tables.Onecanjust imaginethecondition
in the far-flungruralareaswherethereis
no vigilance.Because the magnitudeof
corruptionpresentin the systemensures
thatstudentsget the worstpossiblefood
in the school. The authorsthemselves
acknowledge that "mid-daymeals are
looselysupervisedandformalmonitoring
arrangementsare sparse"and "lack of
supervisionopens the doorto a rangeof
problemssuchaspettycorruption, logistic
delays, and poor hygiene" [Dreze and
Goyal 2003]. And in a situationwherea
Economicand PoliticalWeekly February28, 2004
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family is so poor that even the food for
the whole day is not available,which is
the case for a largenumberof familiesin
this country,thatfamily will neversend
thechildto theschool,becauseeverybody
gets involved in the income generation
activities. Even if the projectis imple-
mentedproperly,studentswill get only
one meal for 20 days or so. In that
situationthe child will preferto do other
remunerativethings. And if a family is
capableof sendingthechildto the school
the food the child is getting at home is
always superiorto that of the mid-day
meal food.
But the thirddefenceis the worst.It is
necessaryto see in detailwhatthey have
to say."Mid-daymealshelpto undermine
caste prejudices,by teachingchildrento
sit togetherand share a common meal.
They also fostergenderequity,by redu-
cing the gendergap in school participa-
tion, providingan importantsource of
female employmentin ruralareas, and
liberatingworkingwomenfromthe bur-
den of having to feed childrenat home
duringthe day. To some extent,mid-day
mealsalsoreduceclassinequalities....This
is likelyto reducefutureclassinequalities,
since lack of educationis a majorsource
of economic disadvantagesand social
marginalisation" [DrezeandGoyal2003].
Firstly,even in thoseschoolswheremid-
day meals are not servedthe studentssit
togetherin the classrooms,since thereis
noseparatesittingarrangement basedupon
casteandclass.Thoughthereis voluntary
genderseparation,girls generallyoccupy
thefrontrow.Theworstproblemthegirls
facein theschoolsis thattherearenotoilet
facilities and in most ruralschools they
have to use open spacesfor this purpose.
Secondly,evenif thestudentssharemeals
togetherin school it does not meanthat
theywill sharefoodtogetherathome.One
behaviour(e g, eating in the same plate
with a memberof anothercaste) may be
rightin one context(in a temple),andnot
in another(in home).Thentherearecases
that many parentssend theirchildrenin
theschool"withpackedfood,oraskthem
to come for lunch"and this effects the
equalityaspects.As far as the argument
that there was no open hostilityagainst
sharingfood in the school,peoplealways fifthgradecompletionands/hegetsRs 200 The real reason for the involvement at the
give 'socially desired answer'. For ex- permonthforteachingfortwohoursa day. initial stage was that people wanted the
ampleif anybodyseekstoquestionwhether In 1998-99 a total of 480 lakh children programme to be implemented because
atrocitieson weakersections is right or were enrolled under this programme. they were getting employment for the
wrong,the overwhelmingresponse will Anotherprojectis Siksha KarmiProject time being.
be wrong. But in everyday life the in which the minimumqualificationfor The basic issue is whether it is the quality
practiceis totallydifferent.As far as the (teacher)menis 8thgradeandfor women of education or otherbenefits thatmotivate
employmentof women is concernedone 5th grade who are supposed to teach the parents to send their children to the
underpaidwomangettingemploymentin up to 5th class. In this scheme 2,16,084 school. When I was student in a village
one village is not an issue at all. studentsareenrolled.Underthe umbrella school in Bihar there were five rooms to
Thebasicquestionis why poorstudents ofLokJumbishtheSahajSikshaPariyojana teach seven classes. The school had hardly
arenotattendingtheschoolsandwhythere was introduced,the qualificationof in- any infrastructurefacilities except black-
is massivedropoutatthelowerlevel. Here structors(teachers)is class 5th pass for board and chalk and we used to sit on the
the importantdistinctionis between the women and class 8th pass for men and floor, which is true for the most of schools
qualityandthe quantity.The conditionof minimumhonorarium is Rs 400 permonth. even today. But there were five committed
the governmentschools is so bad and the Thenumberof studentsis 45,839.Another teachers and since they were outsiders they
qualityof educationis so poor thatthose scheme is Rajiv GandhiSwarnaJayanti used to stay in the village. The quality of
who can afford it are sending their Pathasalain whichtheminimumacademic the education was so good that many of
childrento theprivateschools,whichhave qualification required is senior/higher us used to compete with the students of
been opened by the unemployedpeople secondarypass, butcan be relaxedto 8th good urbanschools. Everybody including
andare cost effective. In Rajsamanddis- class pass in difficultareas.The teacher some SCs used to send their children to
trictin 2001 when I was doing my Ph D gets Rs 1,200 per month. [Rajasthan the school. There are only two matriculate
fieldworkone had to pay only Rs 50 per HumanDevelopmentReport,2002]. "But SCs in the village and they are from that
childto studyin 'Englishmediumschool'. as useful as these programmesmight be generation. After thatthere was downward
These people are not rich but they are in localisedcontexts,thebasicproblemof trend and the school suffered so much
spendingwhateverlittletheyhaveto send endemicilliteracyintheyoungeragegroups that a child studying in standard seven
childrento privateschools.Variousstud- cannot be solved throughsuch ad hoc cannot even write well. This has sent a
ies confirmthat the lower class parents schemes and campaigns,manyof which motivational crisis among the parents
send theirchildrento the privateschool representan over simple response to a because they don't see any benefit in
due to the poor quality of government particular - often rather narrow - aspect school education. The better-off have sent
schools. And once the dominantshave of the problemof educationalbackward- their children to private schools and the
withdrawntheirchildrenfromthe school ness.The priorityshouldbe to ensurethat government school is now functioning on
thereis nobody to monitorwhat is hap- every village in the countryhas a free, god's will.
peningin the school. The vacancieshave functioningwell staffed,andwell attended Now it is necessary to have a look at the
not been filled up citing the resource regularprimaryschool" [Dreze and Sen discourse surrounding the school and the
problemso thereis shortfallof teachers. 1995:124].Not only this croresof rupees place of education in the village. When I
In this situationis it justified to involve arebeingspenton trainingof theseteach- was student in that school, the school had
teachersin other activities?The authors ers.Surveysarebeingconductedto see the only one function and that was to impart
themselvesrecognisethat "any mid-day progress,which in reality has remained education. Earlier whenever some issues
meals can certainly disrupt classroom. elusive.The conditionof the government related to school came up for discussion
processeswhentheinfrastructure processes school is so poorthatonly those who are in the village or with the teachers it was
is inadequate" andthe conditionof infra- at the marginof the society get enrolled the quality of education. But now a new
structurein the ruralgovernmentschools intheseschools.Theincreasingattendance programmecalled National Programmeof
is not a secret. of thegirlstudentis thepointerof thisfact Nutritional Support to PrimaryEducation
This bringsinto questionthe condition becauseboys in our society get preferen- along with other programme like distri-
of the infrastructure.Most schoolsdo not tialtreatmentandstudyin privateEnglish bution of books has been introduced to
haveevenproperbuildingsandclassesare or Hindimediumschools.Theattendance increase the attendance of the students.
held in open spaces. One teacherlooks of the studentsdue to mid-daymeals has Now the school has become a centre for
afterthreeto fourclasses simultaneously. increasedbutthereasonmaybe different. distribution of various benefits. Most of
In orderto get some pat from the inter- Ananalogyfromthewatershedprogramme the time people talk about what sort of
nationalorganisationsas well as some of the Rajasthangovernmentwill give benefits one has got from the school. There
activists,who themselvesneversent their some ideaaboutthe whole issue involved is a case to prove the point. One day a
childrento theseschools,statesafterstates vis-a-vis attendance.When the govern- guardianfound that his son did not get the
have been taking various measures,in- mentdepartmentstartedthis programme rice so he inquired about it. When his son
cludingthe appointment of para-teachers. there was overwhelmingresponseto it, replied that the rice is given to the students
Some observationsabout the quality of andthedepartment misunderstood it as an till standardfive and he is now in standard
teachersfromRajasthanwill be sufficient indexof people'sinvolvement.But when six, the guardian forced him to revert to
here.Theminimumeducationalqualifica- the work was over there was complete standard five again. Though this is an
tionfornon-formaleducationinstructoris alienationandmanyof theprojectsfailed. extreme case it shows how the people's

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priorityvis-a-visthe school has changed.
The authorsreportthat"therewas almost
unanimoussupportfor the continuation
of mid-day meals among poor house-
holds,casuallabours,andmembersof the
scheduledcastes and tribes"[Dreze and
Goyal2003].Thebasicquestionis whether
they are looking the school at a site of
impartingeducationor food distribution
centre.
Thenthereis a problemwiththeentitle-
menttheory.Thetheoryis moreconcerned
about the supply side but supply and
demandare relativeconcepts.If there is
no demandfora particulartypeof supply,
thissupplyhasnorelevance.Andthequality
of educationimpartedin schools is either
pooror it has no relationwith the require-
ment of the organisation.India is not a
countrywhereeducationhas been intro-
ducednow. Thereare millions of people
who are educated.But how far the edu-
cation has been able to enhance their
capabilityor hasentitledto achievesome-
thing can be seen throughempiricalob-
servations.Becauseratherthanenhancing
thecapability"anindiscriminating expan-
sion of educationbeyond the absorbsive
capacity of the economy produces an
alienated class that is unable to relate
meaningfullyto restof thesociety...(and)
with growingunemploymentof its rank
(thisclass) loses self-respectandbecomes
aggressive"[Kothari:1988:12-13]. The
recent tension between the Biharis and
Assameseovertherailwayjobsonlyproves
the point.The TheTimesof Indiareports
thatvacanciesin 'D' categoryin railways
have attracted74 lakhs applicationsand
"those applying for jobs of khalasis,
gangman and helpers included MBAs,
graduates,postgraduatesand engineers.
Thiswhentherequirement wasjust "eight
class pass"[Ramachandran: 2003]. There
is a graduatefrom Gondaand he works
in DelhiMetro.He gets Rs 80 for 10 hours
works. Earlier when he used to work
overtimehe was paiddouble the amount
for the extrawork.Now he gets the same
amountfor the overtimeworks because
thereis moresupplyof the labour.He is
educatedand he knows that this type of
job is not fit for him. But the questionis
wherehe shouldgo? The importantpoint
to note is thathe can earnmoneythrough
tuitionbut his qualityof educationis so
poorthathe cannotteacha 5th standards
student.Thereis a mythin this statement
that "an educatedlaboureris compara-
tively betterplacedto avoid exploitative
1000
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work conditions, or to demand the legal
minimum wage, even if he or she has never
heard of Marx at school" [Dreze and Sen:
2002:1453]. This has relevance only in
a context. A part of the economic boom
in urban centres is due to the exploitative
nature of working conditions under
which the educated class is placed - rang-
ing from manual jobs to work in non-
governmental organisations and research
institutes. Education can enhance the
awareness but if there is no linkage of
this education to the economy this
awareness only brings disillusionment
and frustration. These people easily
become the fodder for the politicians
and other casteist, communal and radical
elements.
So the best thing is to invest money on
quality improvement and this will make
it sure that children will come to school.
"The problem of sharp inequalities of
educational opportunities persists, in spite
of the ongoing improvement in the school
participation. It is even possible that in
some respects these social disparities
have increased in recent years, due inter
alia to the expansion of private schooling
opportunities for privileged children, and
also in some areas, due to declining quality
of government schools...for this reasons,
among others, the improvement of school
education (both quantitative and qualita-
tive) continues to demand greater atten-
tion as a matterof urgent priorities' [Dreze
and Sen: 2002:153]. Otherwise we are
going into a vicious circle where the poor
quality of education will force the better-
offs to keep away from the school and if
the dominants among the community do
not take part in the institution building,
the institution will decline. Right now
India is moving towards a system where
those having better education will corner
the fruits of development, and other so-
called 'educated' but unemployed future
will always remain in dark. On paper we
can claim that we have achieved the
objective of the universalisation of the
education because in order to take some
rice under the National Programme of
Nutritional Support to PrimaryEducation
or due to mid-day meal student enrolment
will increase but the future of these stu-
dents will always remain in darkness. The
amount spent on these programmesis more
than enough to improve the quality of
education in the government schools. In
the school in which I studied all the five
classrooms are now abandoned due to the
Economicand PoliticalWeekly February28, 2004
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poor condition. The government has con-
structed two rooms under a scheme and
this is used to teach seven classes. Re-
cently the village education committee
with the consent of the lower level block
officials has sold five months rice meant
to distribute among the children under
National Programme of Nutritional Sup-
port to Primary Education, and used this
money worth Rs 20,000 to construct
another room. I am not sure about the
wisdom of the people but they think that
construction of the classroom is more
important than giving every child three
kilograms of rice every month. Econom-
ics is a science concerned with the allo-
cation of scarce resources for optimal use,
and the authors who themselves are
economists should try to find out in the
present scenario whether they are right
by advocating the resources to be allo-
cated in these programmes or the 'illiter-
ate villagers' who are interested in spend-
ing resources on the improvement of the
school infrastructure.131
[The author is grateful to RabindraRay, Mukul
and Mohnish for their useful comments.]
References
Dreze, J andGoyal, A (2003): 'Futureof Mid-Day
Meals', Economic and Political Weekly
(November 1).
Dreze, J and Sen, A (1995): India: Economic
DevelopmentandSocial Opportunities,Oxford
University Press, Delhi.
- (2002): 'India:Developmentand Participation',
Oxford University Press, Delhi.
Government of Rajasthan (2002): Human
Development Report, Jaipur.
Kothari,R (1998):RethinkingDevelopment,Ajanta
Publication, Delhi.
Ramachandran,R (2003): 'Desparationfor jobs
led to clashes', The Times of India,
November, 19.
Economic and Political
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