Prime Minister, the Hon. Philip Davis and Minister of Education and Technical and Vocational Training, the Hon. Glenys Hanna Martin both distributed breakfast to students at the Columbus Primary School in New Providence as part of the start of the national free breakfast pilot programme.
Hanna-Martin said the program “is a paradigm in education that’s not on the script and is not necessarily directly related but it is so critical in so many ways to student performance, to student attendance and to the health of young people and children.”
For his part, Prime Minister Davis said, “we recognize a child who is suffering from hunger pangs will have very difficulty learning and focusing. And we appreciate that the high cost of living that we’re experiencing now families are struggling and we don’t want children not to attend school because their parents are unable to feed them and give them breakfast.”
The pilot programme is scheduled to last the academic year at a cost of approximately $1 million.
