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By Jonathan M. Hicap, Reporter
The Department of Education hopes
to fill the minds of schoolchildren with knowledge by first filling
their stomachs with food.
Concerned with reports that some
19 percent of 3.26 million families go hungry, the department
announced it is poised to launch a program that encourages students
to plant vegetables in school. The aim is to help combat hunger, a
major reason why children quit or perform poorly in school.
The department will launch the
“Gulayan sa Paaralan” project in public elementary and high
schools across the country by August, but no specific date was
mentioned. Gulayan is Filipino for vegetable garden.
Hunger among schoolchildren is
responsible for the high dropout rate in the Philippines, according
to a department statement. It added that some 19 percent of Filipino
families, or more than 600,000 families, experience hunger and
malnutrition.
According to records, 2.35
million elementary and high school students—about 13.19 percent of
the student population—dropped out of school in 2006.
“The health and nutrition of
our children is a crucial factor affecting their academic
performance,” Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said in a statement.
The statement explained that the
project aims to foster public awareness on good public health and
the economic benefits of small-scale farming. In this program,
students will plant vegetables on the school grounds, take care of
the plants, and bring home the produce after harvest.
The project will use organic
gardening technologies to produce vegetable varieties selected to
supplement the protein, energy, vitamin A and iron deficiencies that
are common among students, the statement said.
The education department hopes
the school projects will become models for communities, one that
will encourage poor families to also use small, idle plots to plant
food.
The “Gulayan sa Paaralan”
project is partnered with the Department of Agriculture’s
“Programang Agrikultura para sa Masa” (Agriculture Program for
the Masses), the department said.
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