Puducherry cooks up scheme to keep kids in school

IT SERVES EDUCATION: State has zero pecent school drop out rate, thanks partly to the mid-day meal scheme.

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Keywords: Mid Day Meal, Education

Puducherry: School students in Puducherry hunger for education—their appetite whet by a delicious mid-day meal scheme.

Biscuits, fruits and a glass of milk are what over one lakh students in Puducherry get early morning before they get set for their day’s learning. Puducherry, which has population of just over a million, is perhaps the only state that provides breakfast as part of its mid-day meal scheme for all students up to Class XII.

“We noticed that attendance in schools in rural areas was high on those two days in which served eggs. This persuaded us to introduce breakfast along with other material,” says G Ragesh Chandra, the state’s Director of School Education.

Tamil Nadu is commonly believed to be the pioneer with Chief Minister MG Ramachandran getting credit for scaling up the mid-day meal programme in a big way. But Puducherry, or Pondicherry as it was earlier called, claims to have initiated the scheme way back in 1930 under French rule.

Puducherry Chief Minister N Rangasamy, who can be met with at a tea stall, says the Rajiv Gandhi Breakfast Scheme is a necessary expense to ensure quality education.

“In the morning it is necessary to give students something nutritious. We give them milk, fruits and biscuits to ensure they are healthy and attentive,” says Rangasamy.

Puducherry's per student expenditure on school food is the highest in the country. The milk and biscuit programme costs about 7.75 paise per child everyday and is borne entirely by the state. No study has been conducted yet, but anecdotal evidence suggests that there has been an improvement in health and attentiveness. Pudcherry's school drop out rate is zero.