This essay argues that a ‘School Feeding Programme’, that practises ‘Onsite Feeding’ can achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4, i.e. quality equitable life long learning for all learners. Conversely, a ‘Food for School Programme’ can increase enrolment of both boys and girls, however, it might fail to achieve quality learning and, furthermore, can develop a dependency mentality. Moreover, food delivered as aid is often used to pursue donors’ interests so recipient countries should be monitored, to ensure such aid is carefully directed to priority areas to achieve maximum benefit. Failure can result in recipient countries facing unintended consequences.
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory, food is considered a basic physiological need and higher-ordered needs can only be achieved if the basic needs are met. In the education context, for learners to concentrate on learning and for educational institutions to achieve high-quality learning, learners’ physiological needs i.e. food and water must be met before delivering teaching and learning activities. Therefore, different countries introduced ‘Food for Education’ in a form of ‘School Feeding Programme’ and ‘Food For schooling Programme’ to achieve quality education and to redistribute food to poor families.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Food as a Basic Human Need
Education Aid to Global South
Food Aid for Education
Conclusion
References
Introduction
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory, food is considered a basic physiological need and higher-ordered needs can only be achieved if the basic needs are met. In the education context, for learners to concentrate on learning and for educational institutions to achieve high-quality learning, learners’ physiological needs i.e. food and water must be met before delivering teaching and learning activities. Therefore, different countries introduced ‘Food for Education’ in a form of ‘School Feeding Programme’ and ‘Food For schooling Programme’ to achieve quality education and to redistribute food to poor families. While both programmes might have advantages, this essay argues that a ‘School Feeding Programme’, that practises ‘Onsite Feeding’ can achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4, i.e. quality equitable life long learning for all learners. Conversely, a ‘Food for School Programme’ can increase enrolment of both boys and girls, however, it might fail to achieve quality learning and, furthermore, can develop a dependency mentality. Moreover, food delivered as aid is often used to pursue donors’ interests so recipient countries should be monitored, to ensure such aid is carefully directed to priority areas to achieve maximum benefit. Failure can result in recipient countries facing unintended consequences. This essay concludes that the School Feeding Programme should be used for achieving quality learning and to avoid unintended consequences and break the cycle of poverty faced by the underprivileged.
Food as a Basic Human Need
According to Maslow’s classic hierarchy of needs, food is considered a basic need. Even though this theory has been considered by some behavioural scientists as quaint, artificial and without much contemporary theoretical importance in today’s world dominated by globalisation and consumerism and the desire to have new goods and services which have changed the ways the world has been viewed, in recent decades (Abulof 2017). Scholars and scientists still cannot deny that food, along with air and water, remains a basic human need (Douglas,et al 2011). The emergence of consumerism and globalisation only affects the higher-order needs, for example self-actualization, love, belongingness and esteem needs, and do not affect basic physiological needs i.e. food and water (Illustrated in Figs 1 and 2). For example, people desire to have different things in life but when starved, the desire for food automatically trumps all other needs, goals, and desires and dominates the person throughout the process (Douglas, et al, 2011). After satisfying hunger, people then try to satisfy other needs in a hierarchical order as displayed in the diagram (Refer to Figs 1 & 2). According to Abraham Maslow and modern scholars (for example, Abulof 2017; Douglas, et al, 2011), if the lower ordered needs are not met, individuals will strive to achieve those before moving on to the higher-level needs. In this context of education, for learners to achieve quality education as defined by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, food as a basic physiological need must be provided to all learners (students). Only after achieving basic needs will a child (learner), strive to achieve higher-order needs which include quality learning or, simply, self-actualisation according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. For quality learning to occur, it is necessary that all learners have access to food.
Figure 1: Marslows Hierarchy of Needs (Original version)1.
Figure 2: Revised Version of Marlow's Hierarchy of Needs2.
Note: In Maslow’s Original version, food and water are the basic needs, followed by safety, love and belonginess, self-esteem and finally self-actualisation. In the revised Version, Immediate Physiological needs (i.e. food and water), still remain as basic needs, however, self-actualisation has moved to self-esteem and mate acquisition, mate retention and parenting have been added to the higher level needs.
To further contextualise, a student would not concentrate in the classroom if hungry or in fear of dying from starvation. The desire to learn would be overwhelmed by the need for food, thus hindering effective learning and the effort of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, specifically, equitable quality education for all. Therefore, food should be provided to all learners, including the poor and the marginalised, enabling all learners (children) to concentrate on learning. While food remains a basic need and a necessary ingredient to enhance learning, some scholars argue that such notions (providing food to enhance all learners’ learning) are shallow, and would provide minimal benefit compared to the Tuition Fee Free Education Policy, which would improve the education of boys, girls and marginalised students, specifically the education of children from families from poor backgrounds, for whom Tuition Free Fee Education programmes should be introduced instead of ‘Food for Education Programmes’. While this could be true for example, in Third World countries where poor families may not be able to afford school fees, if fees were introduced, boys would usually be given an opportunity of education before girls. Despite this, food remains an important aspect to consider in delivering quality education. Food, poverty, and other discriminating factors are intersectional, combining to affect student’s quality learning. If Tuition Fee Free learning is introduced without students’ basic physiological needs (food) being met, the students would become firstly concerned about their physiological needs before their learning needs. In such an event, student enrolment and retention numbers in the system would be mere statistics lacking quality outcomes. Therefore, ‘ Food for Education’ programmes should be introduced in Third World countries where fees are generally much less affordable. ‘Food Aid’ as ‘Food for Education’ programmes should be considered to achieve Sustainable Development goal 4, i.e. not only to quantitatively achieve increased enrolment and retention rates, but also to qualitatively achieve lifelong learning for all learners.
Education Aid to Global South
Food Aid as a form of ‘Food for Education’ can improve the quality of students’ learning, especially in recipient countries where the need for education is high and its coverage is low. Recipient countries must be mindful about how Food Aid is used. For example, Novelli (2010) reveals that in Afghanistan, after the 9/11 terrorist attack, US Aid to Education, including Food Aid was used to pursue United States interests in combating terrorism, rather than to develop Afghanistan’s education system. Moreover, Novelli, (2010) claims that US Non-government Organisations and other agencies (for example, the United Nation’s World Food Program) were used by US security forces and those of its allies in Afghanistan to achieve their security goals. This has created distrust and disunity within the community and a noticeable increase in Taliban attacks on education institutions. Similar claims were made by Shields and Menashy (2019), stating that Global Aid from Global North and Emerging Developing Nations to Third World countries has been used to pursue their economic, social, and political interests, for example, to secure votes in UN meetings, to gain trade favours, and to mitigate terrorist risk, instead of truly trying to assist Third World nations in developing their education systems. Therefore, even though food is a basic physiological need, and is necessary for the achievement of equitable quality education in the Global South, Food Aid, even in the form of ‘Food For Education’ programmes, should be handled with care to avoid unintended consequences.
While aid to education, including Food Aid, might have negative effects, some Global South countries have used it carefully and have successfully developed their education systems in line with Sustainable Development Goal 4 i.e. equitable quality lifelong learning for all. For example, Colclough and De (2010) claim that India has successfully utilised Aid in implementing its education policies towards achieving ‘Education for All’ under ‘Millennium Development Goals’ (later changed to ‘Equitable Quality Lifelong Learning For All , SDG 4’ at the 2015 Incheon Conference). India achieves this by suspending all its minor donors and concentrating on working with its major donors specifically by directing aid towards its priority areas i.e. Basic Primary Education (Colclough & De, 2010). Through carefully selecting its aid partners, monitoring and directing aid towards areas that contribute towards the country’s education needs, India has improved significantly in implementing ‘Millennium Development Goal 2’, i.e. in achieving ‘Universal Primary Education’ which sets the foundation for effective implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4. Therefore, like India, if other aid recipient countries directed aid into areas where education needs exist, they can significantly boost their countries’ quality of education, and since food and water are among the basic physiological needs, Food for Education should be given priority.
Food Aid for Education
According to Kristjansson et al (2016), many of the world’s estimated 795 million chronically undernourished people are children. Off these children, in 2015, about 159 million were stunted and 50 million were wasted because of nutrient deficiency which also affects children’s health, psychomotor and cognitive development. It is estimated that in 2012, the lack of food supply prevented about 67 million children around the world from attending schools, and 66 million went to school hungry (Kristjansson et al, 2016), without a proper meal, which will have reduced their concentration, as explained by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and, far worse, could have impaired their life-long cognitive abilities. Several countries, realising this, have introduced School Feeding Programmes in their schools. Other countries unable to afford food aid, depend on external donors, and international agencies. In 2012, the UN World Food Program, the world’s largest food donor, estimated that 370 million children received food in a form of the Food for Education Programme (Kristjansson et al, 2016) and a portion of that was supplied as Food Aid to developing countries where the need was greatest, but coverage was weak.
Among common methods used in distributing Food Aid in education institutions in recipient countries are the “School Feeding programme’ or ‘Onsite Feeding’, and the ‘Food for Schooling Programme’. Neef (2020), explains that the School Feeding Programme provides free snacks or a warm meal to children attending schools (as dinner or lunch i.e. onsite feeding), while the Food for Schooling Programme, conversely provides free, take-home, dry rations of food to poor households as long as primary school-aged children from those homes actually attend school. While the two methods of food distribution are generally used for the same purpose, i.e. to promote household investment in the human capital (Cheung & Berlin, 2014), the aims and objectives of applying different methods may vary. For example, Neef (2020), claims that to alleviate short-term hunger, the School Feeding programme firstly requires children to be physically present at school in order to be fed and secondly the provided food is intended for only that (short) duration when the child needs to concentrate in learning. On the other hand, the ‘Food For Schooling Programme’ acts as an incentive to poor families to send their children to school regularly where, to be eligible for monthly food rations, children have to attend a certain number of classes.
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1 Image credited to - Kremer, W., & Hammond, C. (2013, September 1st). Abraham Maslow and the pyramid that beguiled businesses. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23902918
2 Image credited to - Wiley, S (2020, February 3rd). How will Maslow Hierarchy of needs look like if it was created in 2020? Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/profile/Sandra-Wiley
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- Norris Wangian (Autor), 2021, Maslow’s and Dependency Theorists Perspectives for Food for Schooling Programme and School Feeding Programme, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1064697
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