Source: NZ Principals Federation
“Yesterday’s announcement to continue the Ka Ora Ka Ako lunches in schools programme is a good step forward,” said Leanne Otene, President of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF).
“The school lunches go some way to addressing our growing equity gap which is already the biggest in the OECD,” said Otene.
The announcement revealed that schools choosing to deliver lunches internally will no longer receive $8.29 per head. Instead they will be funded at $4.00 per head.
Externally prepared lunches will be costed at $3.00 per head.
“Schools wanting to continue delivering lunches from their own school kitchens, will be struggling,” said Otene. “Sadly, if they were forced to opt for the external lunch delivery, the capital investment in school kitchens would be wasted,” she said, “so its a no win for those schools.”
A second issue is that there will be no funding for distributing lunches to the students.
“In the case of larger schools, the problem will be distribution of the lunches,” said Otene. “It would be a tragedy to see Teacher Aide hours diverted from teaching and learning to lunch distribution,” she said.
Overall, Otene is pleased that the lunch programme is now a permanent fixture and it is hoped that additional funding will be added to address the distribution issues.
