Durban - The KwaZulu-Natal education portfolio committee plans to embark on unannounced visits to assess whether pupils are eating at school.
This will add further pressure on the provincial Department of Education, which has come under fire for the near collapse of the nutrition programme.
“The Portfolio Committee will (in the next few weeks) embark on unannounced visits in different schools and districts to see how the feeding programme is going, with the aim to receive facts on the ground as part of its oversight responsibility,” it said in a statement.
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Education, Sifiso Sonjica, said: “We are continuing to engage with the department on the issue of NSNP.”
In a statement, the chairperson appealed to all those who are genuinely interested to assist schools to do so without breaking the law and political parties to desist from interfering with schools.
This was expressed by the chairperson after a circulating video showing a certain political party conducting what seemed to be either political campaigning, encroaching on the school time or conducting a rally in a school.
The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) has saluted teachers that have ensured pupils have meals to eat following the near collapse of the school nutrition programme.
Thousands of children in the province have not had meals in school since they reopened almost three weeks ago, and since the reopening of schools after the Easter break, the supplier of food to schools has battled to deliver.
“Sadtu takes pride in its members who have gone an extra mile to organise resources on their own to ensure that pupils in schools are fed under these conditions,” said Sadtu provincial secretary Nomarashiya Caluza in a statement.
“We continue to encourage our members to continue to do so as we know that our founding principle as a union is not limited to matters of workers’ bread and butter issues, but to address all matters that impact education so as to ensure a totally educated citizenry,” she said.