A recent trip to northern Uganda opened our eyes to the tragedy in our primary schools.
According to a head teacher there, a NGO called Right to Play, distributed footballs to schools there with the express intention of supporting physical education.
However, as happened later, the schools realised that they could use the footballs more regularly. Thus, at many primary schools, when the lunch time bell rings at 1pm, footballs are tossed to the pupils who then indulge in various versions of soccer for at least at hour. Only exhaustion and hunger will persuade the most enthusiastic to give up and begin the trek home.
Because both the teachers and the pupils have nothing to eat during the day, they have realised that it is pointless to pretend to be conducting any lessons on empty stomachs.
This problem is not restricted to northern Uganda. Many government-aided primary schools across the country are only slowly rising to the challenge of providing nutrition at lunch time.
Yet it is only too clear that nutrition is important for education. Newly-appointed minister Rosemary Sseninde has pledged to find a workable solution for this problem, after years of complaining about it from the confines of parliament, where she was once chairperson of the committee on education. Can she succeed?
Perhaps she can. For one, Sseninde will need to find a way to empower school management committees across the country to run their institutions more professionally.
The committee will need to find the funds to ensure there is feeding available for both teachers and learners.
In these days of tight budgets and increasing demands, it sounds like a tall order. But only a committed minister can pull that off. Time will tell if Sseninde will be able to turn her words in parliament into visible action as a minister, or give in defeat, as more stay hungry at school.
school@observer.ug