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THE schools feeding programme has started fairly well. There are deliveries of mealie meal to rural schools and, from what our reporters have seen, many schools and their parent communities are playing their part by sorting out the vegetable relishes and the cooking duties.

This was set up as an emergency measure in a drought year, to ensure that children, many of whom even with the addition of new schools built with devolution funds, have to walk several kilometres to school every day.

In a rural context and even with the maximum density of schools, there will always be some who have to walk 5km in each direction each day, although most will have shorter walks.

The same problem arises in the lowest density urban suburbs, although middle density and high density suburbs should have schools closer together.

The emergency programme was designed to ensure that all rural schoolchildren, and some urban schoolchildren whose families might also have problems, had at last one decent hot meal each day, regardless of the family problems.

Even when food is readily available at home, someone still has to get up an hour before children go to school, perhaps two hours before school starts, to prepare a meal, and that is not always possible.

Schools that have started preparing and serving a daily meal have reported that the desired results are there.

The children are alert in class and absenteeism rates are almost zero. It is much easier to teach a class of children who are all alert, as well as all awake, and are not fighting hunger pains.

Educationalists and nutritionists have known for many years that a child who has had a decent meal will perform better at school. Some of the fancier private schools serve a proper lunch, and even provide mid-morning sandwiches.

Boarding schools obviously make sure that growing children have a proper breakfast before starting lessons and a decent lunch at the end of morning sessions.

While the introduction of the present school meal was an emergency measure, it would seem that the results are so dramatic that it should become a permanent part of school life and the school day, in good years as well as bad. The meals do not have to be expensive, just nutritious, and properly cooked.

The rural schools are showing the way, especially as they are now getting their boreholes, and many are growing their own vegetables to add to the mealie meal from Government.

Parents are also helping out, and shoving one or two vegetables or a few leaves of spinach or rape into the child’s bag when they go to school does not seem to be a major burden. There could even be a roster over who brings the veggies each day.

In the developed world, Britain has for many decades had the official school lunch as part of the school day, to cope with the school starting and finishing times.

Most importantly there is a very simple and not very strict means test to determine which children qualify for a free lunch. This includes far more than those whose families might be on social security payments.

Obviously, the present emergency programme will continue into the first term of next year, as the first fruits of the season will not be available until the second term, but as we move into the consultation period for the national budget for next year, we should be looking at the costs of making the system permanent, and working out how these can be paid.

We do not think they will be severe, especially when parents have shown a willingness to help out.

The Government, through BEAM, had already shown it was not going to have poverty passed on from generation to generation, and a free meal programme should be added in so that the rest of the major Government efforts, supporting councils and communities with devolution funds and providing the teachers for the new schools, are more than just better numbers but also mean something practical.

Emergencies sometimes produce ideas and innovations that remain since they fill a major need.

While the school meals could and should be one of these, other parts of the present drought emergency show the same innovation and determination that Zimbabweans will not suffer unduly.

Emergency grain rations have long been part of rural life, and these have now been formalised through the extra inputs supplied to chiefs, headmen and village heads to plant out the community plots embedded in our  cultures.

These are the first reserves for the most vulnerable households, the old, the child-headed and similar identified community needs.

The Government then steps in as more might be needed, as we have seen this year. But again the community makes up the lists.

The sturdy formalisation in the rural communities is fairly simply to set up, monitor and upgrade, especially as it is based on traditional values and the traditional functions of traditional leaders.

Urban areas this year are seeing something similar for the first time, a basic cash payment so the most vulnerable families can buy mealie-meal, 10kg per person per month.

This is not a lot of money, but it is a start and will ensure that people do not go hungry, even if they have to divert waste water to growing a few vegetables to add to that ration.

A lot of these people were reliant on rural relatives handing over the odd bag of grain, which is not available this year, but some were simply just very poor and destitute and having to beg from neighbours.

The Department of Social Services has set up a workable system that brings in the names of those who need help and prevents cheating, without a huge posse of bureaucrats costing far more than the food, and that is another achievement.

We think that scheme could and should be retained in the good years. The numbers being helped will fall significantly, but there will always be some who really do need this support.

The Government, quite correctly, dumped subsidies on food since these are inefficient and untargeted.

The rich, as well as the very poor, benefit from the support. And even subsidised food needs money to buy it, and if you have nothing the subsidy is not much help.