HUNDREDS of Victoria College students have called on the government to commit to offering a free school meal to all Island pupils with parents on income support before the start of the next academic year.
Inspired by England footballer Marcus Rashford’s successful free-school-meals campaign, pupils wrote to Children’s and Education Minister Scott Wickenden in November to say they were ‘disappointed’ at a lack of similar provisions for children in Jersey. They said yesterday that they were still looking forward to the minister’s promised response.
Students at the fee-paying school recently set up a ‘food poverty advocacy group’ to consider what they could do to support Islanders experiencing food poverty, and said they were waiting to hear what action the government was going to take to ‘put children first’, including regarding its school-meals pilot scheme.
Writing to Deputy Wickenden on behalf of the group and 548 members of the student community, pupil Charles Maloney said that despite being ‘blessed to live on a wealthy Island’, there were many still struggling to make ends meet. His message highlighted figures that one-in-five Island households struggled financially, rising to 44% for single-parent families.
The JEP recently reported that as many as 1,000 children in the Island may be going without a hot meal each day – a figure cited by Caring Cooks operating manager Hannah Skelton.
Caring Cooks launched a pilot-school-lunch programme in association with the government in 2019 which provides a daily main meal and dessert to children at Janvrin, Samarès and St Luke’s primary schools. The scheme was recently extended to St Martin’s and St Peter’s schools.
This was a ‘strong foundation’ to build on, according to the students’ letter, which added that they ‘would like to see a formal commitment from the government that all students with parents on income support, regardless of the school they attend, would be provided with free school meals by September 2022’.
It was ‘shameful’ that children in Jersey were unable to concentrate in school due to hunger, according to the letter, which echoed recent comments made by Haute Vallée School governor Phil Horsley, who said he had been ‘haunted’ after hearing that some children were going hungry.
The letter heaps more pressure on the government to extend its school-meals pilot across the Island, with Mr Horsley and children’s commissioner Deborah McMillan voicing support for its expansion.
Deputy Rob Ward lodged a proposal in December 2020 to set aside funds to extend the scheme, but his proposition was rejected. A written States question lodged by the Reform Jersey politician highlighted that around half of the students at three St Helier schools – Rouge Bouillon, Springfield and First Tower – received additional support as they were from low-income households, but had not yet been included in the school-meals initiative.
Manchester United forward Mr Rashford forced the UK government to perform two U-turns in relation to providing free school meals during the summer and winter holidays in 2020, following a sustained campaign to supply food vouchers outside of term time to the 1.3 million children entitled to them.
