Editorial: School calls an insult

Prime Minister John Key conceded some kids arrived at school hungry, just not that many. Photo / NZME.

It's alarming - if not insulting - for Prime Minister John Key to suggest cold-calling three low-decile schools on a single day can provide an insight into whether children are going hungry in this country.

Prior to a vote on two food-in-schools private member's bills, both of which were lost in the vote, Mr Key asked Education Minister Hekia Parata to call the decile 1, 2 and 3 schools and ask how many children had arrived without lunch.

The answer, he says, was zero at one school in Ruatoria, one or two at Sylvia Park Primary School in Auckland, of which I am a former pupil, and about 12 at Manurewa Intermediate, a decile-one school with a roll of 711.

He conceded some kids arrived at school hungry, just not that many.

Useless data like this adds nothing to the debate. It also ignores the fact teachers at low-decile schools have, for the past few years, reported tens of thousands of pupils arriving at school hungry.

If Merivale School had been part of Mrs Parata's survey, principal Jan Tineti would have been able say she has to find lunch for one-fifth of the children at her school.

The Green Party bill aimed to introduce state-funded lunches and breakfasts at all decile-one and decile-two schools.

The second, put forward by Labour MP David Shearer, was the more promising of the two. Mr Shearer planned to rework it to focus on nutrition, reducing child obesity and encouraging self-reliance.

Mr Shearer's billaimed to put resources into schools to help teach children how to garden and provide for themselves and understand a healthy diet.

He gave an example of visiting Owairaka District School, where such a scheme is in place.

There he was served a vegetarian pizza from their own pizza oven, salad from their garden and muffins made with eggs from their chickens and honey from their hives.

The food grown at the school was used to provide meals for needy pupils, which sounds like a logical solution to me.

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