Associate Education Minister David Seymour has announced funding will continue for the next few years, after initially proposing cuts of up to 50 per cent.
After putting pressure on Seymour to retain the program in its current capacity, educators, health experts, students and whānau have welcomed the news.
“We are delighted that Associate Education Minister David Seymour has decided to save the Ka Ora Ka Ako lunches in schools programme – it’s a very sensible and welcome move,” Chris Abercrombie, PPTA Te Wehengarua president, said in a statement.
“It’s great that the Government has listened to school communities and health advocates and is funding the programme for another few years. There will be hundreds of thousands of tamariki, rangatahi and their families who will be very relieved to hear this news,” he added.
For the first time in 2022, the PISA test questionnaire asked students how many meals they had missed in the past 30 days due to a lack of money to buy food.
The data showed that each week, 14 in every 100 Kiwi students were missing a meal at least once, and 6.5 per cent were going without meals more than four times.
“Students who missed meals even just once a week scored much lower than their peers who never went hungry,” researcher Dr Pippa McKelvie-Sebileau said.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told RNZ free school lunches would continue, in line with National’s election promise, but warned there will be some changes to make it more efficient.
"We believe in the programme. We are now funding the programme, but we want to make sure that it’s been effective,” he said.
Abercrombie hopes the reprieve gives Seymour more time to explore the benefits of the programme and consider extending it where necessary.
“We also hope that the Prime Minister’s desire to make the programme more efficient does not involve targeting to particular students within a school,” he said.
“The evidence is very clear that this is stigmatising and does not work.”
