Schools win in revised budget to feed learners, build classrooms
Friday February 18 2022
The government has been allocating Rwf8 billion annually as subsidy for school feeding programme. Photo: Cyril Ndegeya
It is a slight win for public schools across the country after Treasury allocated more funds for meals programme and completion of classrooms in this year’s revised budget.
The revise d budget for the 2021/2022 fiscal year tabled in parliament for approval show additional Rwf5 billion million has been earmarked towards covering the gap for school feeding program at all levels of education.
Additional Rwf4 billion has been allocated to clearing unsettled bills in the classroom construction projects.
Works on several classrooms started as part of the nationwide school infrastructure expansion to deal with overcrowding had either not been completed or lacked equipment on account of funding deficit to meet additional cost land for expansion, lack of construction materials and issues with contractors.
This left schools struggling with limited space to enforce social distancing amid recurrent virus waves since reopening for the 2021/2022 school year in October last year.
Particularly, more allocation offers a reprieve to schools that have been reeling under the funding shortfall facing the school feeding programme, which was expanded to all levels of primary education this year, despite little change in budget allocation.
Many schools have been banking on parents’ contributions to supplement State allocation, but still grappled with non-payment as livelihoods and sources of income are still strained by the pandemic.
The education docket officials had not commented on our request for details regarding the modalities of the disbursement of the additional allocation, and school heads told Rwanda Today they were yet to get any communication about the budget increment.
“The increment will help a lot because the meal program implementation still suffers setbacks. It is very much dependent on parents’ contributions yet there is lack of mechanism to bring them to comply. In addition, vulnerable families hardly make any contribution and that calls for ways to fill that gap,” a head of school in Nyabihu District told Rwanda Today.
This, coupled with a rise in cost of food items on the market left schools in a dilemma with many running the risk of excluding crucial food items from the meals as a coping mechanism.
Schools’ food purchase plans were particularly affected by rising food inflation and supply bottlenecks linked with the pandemic.
Prices of items like meat, milk, and eggs, as well as cooking oil remained above normal and on the rise across markets in the country due largely to increased costs of animal feed and high imports expenses, according to local players.
The treasury in May last year allowed schools to buy local agriculture produce, including maize, rice, potatoes, beans, green vegetables, and others from local farmers, cooperatives, and local millers in their localities.
This was in a bid to ease pressure in terms of costs and supply bottlenecks linked to formal procurement processes.
The education ministry equally chipped in with additional school feeding funds to boarding schools which were faced with extended school term with rising bills associated with compliance with the Covid-19 preventive measures.
While the interventions eased schools burden, they did little to end their woes especially this year after parts of the Eastern Province food basket Districts were hit by the drought.
Government had been contributing Rwf8 billion annually as subsidy for day meals in the 9-12-year education schools with over 700, 000 student population, but the program was expanded this year to include over 2.5 million learners across all levels of primary.
This saw the budget allocated to schools increased to Rwf38 billion, way below Rwf65 billion package the education ministry sought from the treasury for the program.