Geetanjali Krishna: No such thing as a free lunch

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

I stand across the fence, watching the children play in the primary school of Kafura, a small village in Kumaon. "They all seem to enjoy school," I comment to the teacher, Devendra Singh. He looks at the children ruefully, saying: "They enjoy playing, that's for sure! And they love their free lunch. But not even one child, or any parent for that matter, is serious about studying!"

The culprit, he believes, is the government's midday meal scheme. "What's the problem with the midday meal scheme," I ask. "This one welfare programme of the government has far-reaching repercussions on the state's education system," he says. Since he obviously holds strong views on the subject, I position myself comfortably on a rock to listen.

"On a purely practical level," he says, "it means that each government school has to create facilities for cooking lunch. In the plains perhaps, this may not be a big task. But in these remote mountain villages where the nearest road is about three kilometres away, carrying up several sacks of food grain from the ration shop becomes a huge and time-consuming task!" How do they manage, I ask. "We've no option but to get the children to carry up a couple of kilos each," he says, "they treat it as a big holiday treat and refuse to study afterwards!"

The storage of grain for the midday meal is not easy either: "I had to get a store with a lockable door constructed to keep the grain. After all, if any grain goes missing, the government will blame me, not some faceless thieves!" Singh has also had to hire a lady to cook the midday meal, meticulously measure out rice every morning and also make entries in his register. "The net result is that instead of teaching, most of my time is spent in looking after the grain, supervising the cook and getting the food made," he says ruefully.

The timing of the meal set by the school has also been unfortunate "" but this is something Singh realised only in retrospect. "I thought that since most pupils came to school without eating their morning meal, we should give them the midday meal at 9:30 in the morning," he recounts. But this has played havoc with their routine. "The children come at seven, study for half an hour till the smell of the food cooking makes them forget everything else. Then they eat, and eat and eat and eat. Many of them eat so much that they just go to sleep right here in the school compound. Others need to use the toilet. Some just disappear. None are in any mood for scholastic inputs for the next hour or two," he says bitterly.

The children run about in the yard, oblivious to their teacher's woes. I ask whether they at least have some sports equipment. He smiles: "The government provides us with drums to store foodgrain, but no sports equipment for the children ... isn't it ironical?"

Singh's woes are compounded by the fact that he is the only teacher in the school. "The bulk of my time goes in organising the midday meal. My responsibilities as the sole teacher of five classes have paled in importance!" he says. The result is that the children never manage to study the entire syllabus, making the entire exercise in education slightly futile. He says, "that's why I believe that the midday meal may be a good idea from the point of view of welfare "" but at the end of the day, it's the students who're paying the price for it!"