ABSTRACT
The School Feeding Programme (SFP) has benefited pupils in
the basic level of education worldwide. It served as safety nest to reduce
hunger and reduce nutritional disorder. In the nursing training colleges in
Ghana, SFP were adopted to ensure that trainee nurses are not unnecessarily
hungry throughout the training period hence improve their cognitive
functioning. However, after about 43 years into the programme, the Ankaful
Psychiatric Nurses Training College (APNTC) suspended the school feeding
programme. After about four years of suspension, the management is considering
reintroducing the school feeding programme. This study examined the perception
of stakeholders regarding the reintroduction of the school feeding at the
APNTC. The study employed the descriptive survey design and drew samples from
APNTC. Questionnaire was the main instrument used to gather data. The main
findings of the study were that, students go through stress in cooking by
themselves, students contract several ailments as a result of eating food
outside the school and waste a lot of time on cooking. The study further
revealed that reintroduction of school feeding will help reduce electricity
bills as a result of the use of electrical appliance for cooking meals, school
feeding will help improve on teaching and learning activities in the college.
It was recommended that Management of the nursing training colleges should
engage trainee nurses in the menu planning to enhance efficient implementation
of the feeding programme and the policy makers should come out with a policy to
standardize feeding in all nursing training colleges in the country, hence
making school feeding formal and its usefulness to the trainee nurses clearly
stated.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The school feeding policy was adopted in most nursing
training colleges in Ghana. This is because, the programme has been perceived
as very beneficial to students at all levels of their education. Despite the
numerous benefits of the school feeding programme in the provision of education
in Ghana, some management of tertiary educational institutions have begun to
abolish the programme in their schools. After many years of operating the
feeding programme at the Ankaful PNTC, the management of the college suspended
the feeding programme and introduced the self-feeding system where students
have to prepare their own meal. After four years of cancelling the school
feeding programme, the management of Ankaful PNTC has considered re-introducing
the school feeding programme. It is evident from literature that the school
feeding programme has several benefits that student get when they are provided
meals at school and trainee nurses are not exception. This study is relevant to
explore what stakeholders perceive of the re-introduction of the school feeding
programme and suggest measures that could be put in place by management to
sustain the school feeding programme at the Ankaful PNTC.
Background to the Study
Tertiary educational institution is known for innovation,
implementation of new ideas which may result in positive achievement. Today’s
higher education environment has become increasingly competitive, and many public colleges and universities have begun to adopt
market-oriented strategies as a result (Leland & Moore, 2007). This
competitive environment is driven by a number of forces. As a result,
management of every institution is working so well to put in place measures
that will ensure that students after completion of tertiary education will meet
the request of the job market (Leland & Moore, 2007).
According to Sen (1999), the only way to build a nation is to
provide quality and adequate educational infrastructure for its youth. It is
through education that the lives of people are shaped to become future
political leaders, scientists, economists, artists and thinkers (UNESCO, 2011).
Education in its general sense is a form of learning in which knowledge,
skills, and habits of a group of people are transferred from one generation to
the next through teaching, training, research, or simply through auto
didacticism (Sen, 1999). Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a
formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts.
Food is an essential part of everyone’s lives. It gives us
the energy and nutrients to grow and develop, be healthy and active, to move,
work, play, think and learn (Barrett & Maxwell, 2007; Vermeersch &
Kremer, 2005). The body needs a variety of the following 5 nutrients - protein,
carbohydrate, fat, vitamins and minerals from the food we eat to stay healthy
and productive. Protein is needed to build, maintain and repair muscle, blood,
skin and bones and other tissues and organs in the body (Barrett & Maxwell,
2007). Micronutrient from minerals and vitamins control many functions and
processes in the body. These entire essential nutrition components and their
benefits to the individual are gotten from the daily food intake. In the same vein, hunger is a condition in which people lack the basic
food intake to provide them with the energy and nutrients for fully productive
lives. Living on empty stomach or on significantly less than the daily
recommended calorie intake for a long period may result in underweight, lack of
energy results in the body and mind slowing down, resulting in a hungry
individual experiencing: Lack of energy to do things, play and learn, apathy -
whereby the individual is less interested in the world around her and less
resistance to disease as their immune system weakens (Barrett & Maxwell,
2007). These and many more are the reasons why several studies deem it
important that the individual is fed at school to ensure that hunger is
quenched and the daily nutritional requirement are met for proper cognitive
functioning. A school feeding programme is one of the programmes implemented in
a number of countries, including South Africa, in an effort primarily to
improve school attendance and academic performance in education through
improved learner nutrition and health (Grantham-McGregor, Chang, & Walker,
2015).The School feeding programme in Ghana is one of the social intervention
programmes introduced to improve the educational standards in the basic, Junior
and Senior high schools in Ghana. School feeding programmes have been
implemented in various schools across the globe to eliminate hunger and improve
the nutritional welfare of learners (WFP, 2009; WFP, 2013). According to World
Food Programme (2000), other factors of education such as quality of education
in terms of qualified teachers, conducive environment and adequate teaching and
learning materials become relevant when hunger is addressed and the student is
in school. Hunger among students in school may be addressed through provision
of SFP in schools. Trainee nurses are most often occupied with field work and hardly make time for
themselves. Again, trainee nurses use human beings for their practical
experience and as such need attention and focus to get procedures done right. A
shift in attention during the performance of a procedure as a result of hunger
could cost the innocent patient’s life. To prevent this occurrence, timely
provision of food to the trainee nurse is necessary. The nature of school
feeding in the tertiary institution especially the nursing training colleges
across Ghana is such that, students are served three square meals regularly
throughout their three year stay in the college.
Relating the in-school feeding programme to the nursing
profession, Nightingale, the mother of nursing, in her principles of nursing
training provided a universal template for early nurse training school
beginning with St. Thomas Hospital. She believed that food formed an important
aspect of human development and this must be considered at any stage in life.
Students in the tertiary institutions especially nursing training are health
inclined and would live healthy as per the principles of Florence Nightingale.
Nightingale noted that individuals desire different kinds of food at different
times of the day and that frequent small servings may be more beneficial to the
individual than a large breakfast or dinner (Nightingale, 1869).
According to Nightingale (1869), the early days of nursing
practice was associated with the poor in society, such that only the poor in
society were found to do unclassified jobs and give services such as care for
the sick. Nightingale disputed this ideology. She propounded a theory which
grew from her empirical observation during the Crimea war where she considered
nursing as a call, to a more complex theory that view nursing as a science and
art.
People who enrolled for health training back then were
provided basic needs which included feeding during the period of training
(Nightingale, 1869).
In the face of the above, in-school feeding was established
in all nursing training colleges in Ghana right from their inception. The
rational for the establishment of the in-school feeding was to relieve students
from the stress of food preparation. This is to enable them have enough time to
perform their academic activities. Martens (2007) asserts that school feeding
is to provide trainees with the essential nutrition required for cognitive
functioning. Several studies have discussed in-school feeding and its related
issues at the primary and secondary levels of education. However, little is
known about the perception of stakeholders regarding school feeding at the
training colleges in Ghana. There has not been much exploration on the impact
of school feeding on teaching and learning activities of students in the
nursing training colleges. In many school feeding programmes, students
passively accept the food they get. Some students may offer suggestions or
complain from time to time, but they soon learn that their views have little
impact. Students may not get the quality they expect. Although these
difficulties can never be totally eliminated, they will be reduced if school
feeding is organized in terms of rights-based programmes with stakeholders’
views being paramount (Kent, 2010). The objective of the in-school feeding
programme was to ensure that students in schools were able to focus on academic
work and improve general academic work. Several empirical studies have talked
about in-school feeding in diverse ways. According to (Ahmed &
Arends-Kuenning, 2003) in-school feeding is routine practice in most schools
across the globe.
Most nursing colleges in Ghana are practicing the in-school
feeding programme with the exception of a few namely; Ankaful, Korle-Bu and
Pantang Nursing Training Colleges who recently opted out with reasons unknown.
These nursing training colleges no longer feed their students in school.
Students are now allowed to feed themselves in school. Before the abolishment
of the in-school feeding programme in these nursing training colleges, nursing
trainees at the nursing training college in Ghana were provided with school
meals at a subsidized rate each semester.
The PNTC, Ankaful located in the K. E. E. A district is an
institution established as far back 1972 to train professional mental health
nurses. The training of these professionals is an all-important task which
requires a more conducive environment comprising proper sanitation, good
nutrition, portable water supply, good light systems and the like for effective
teaching and learning procedures. The institution also runs an affiliation
system for most health training institutions in Ghana (Mbroh & Appetey,
2015).
Right from the inception of Nursing Training Colleges in
Ghana, the in-school feeding programme has been part of the administration of
the colleges. Nursing trainees are provided with a three-squared meal
throughout their stay in the college at a subsidized rate. The purpose of the
in-school feeding programme was to increase the quantity and quality of
students’ meals and to enhance trainee nurses’ involvement in teaching and
learning activities (Mbroh & Appetey, 2015). From the school’s inception,
both regular and affiliated students have enjoyed a feeding system. This eased
them from the pressure of acquiring, preparing and storing food. The feeding
also provided lunch for the tutors of the school thus afford them enough
time to stay productively in the school.
The abolishment of the in-school feeding programme at Ankaful
PNTC in 2015 was as a result of a petition presented to college management by
the student body. Their petition was to plead with the college management to
address issues on food given them (SRC memo, 2014 PNTC Ankaful). The students
argued several points including the fact that the cost of feeding charged them
is on a high side. The principal at that time, Rev. Aba Nkoom consulted other
Nursing training schools where students feed themselves and decided to also try
that system of self-feeding by the students. Based on this, the management of
Ankaful PNTC decided to suspend the programme.
The management of the Ankaful PNTC set up a committee to
investigate the concerns raised by the students regarding the in-school feeding
programme and also to make recommendations. The committee met the entire
student body, through its representative council (SRC) in August 2014 to
deliberate on the issues they raised in their petition. Some of the concerns
raised included bad taste of food, queuing for food for long hours, complains
from kitchen staff on shortage of ingredient for cooking which affected the
quantity of food served them. The students expressed dissatisfaction in the
fact that they were made to pay huge sums of money for food which was below the
expectation of the meal they are served with. The committee recommended that
students should be served breakfast and supper at a specific cost. However, the
management’s extensive consultation from other schools like PNTC Pantang, NMTC
Korle- Bu who have successfully adopted a self-feeding system inspired the
adoption of the self-feeding programme in the school. This led to the eventual abolishment of the in-school
feeding programme at the Ankaful PNTC.
It has been about four years since in-school feeding was
cancelled in the Ankaful PNTC. Nevertheless, , the management of the Ankaful
PNTC has made plans of re-introducing the feeding programme. This has
necessitated the need to investigate the perceptions of stakeholders regarding
the re-introduction of the in-school feeding programme at the Ankaful PNTC in
other to set standard measures by which in-school feeding should be implemented
and sustained when re-introduced.
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