SOME 42,372 undernourished kindergarten and grade 6 pupils will benefit from the Department of Education’s school-based feeding program as part of the agency’s efforts to help them do better in school.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, Education Secretary Armin Luistro said that the feeding program, which is being implemented since October 2012 up to March 2013, provides nutritious meals to selected pupils suffering from severe malnutrition for 100 to 120 feeding days.

“Our specific target here is children who come to school on an empty stomach which results to absenteeism or poor school performance. This short-term hunger syndrome is observed among public elementary school children who do not eat breakfast or walk long hours to reach school,” Luistro explained.

The program aims to rehabilitate at least 70 percent of the undernourished school children to normal nutritional status at the end of the feeding days.

“At the end of the day, we want these target school children to improve their classroom attendance to up to 100 percent by improving their health and nutritional status,” Luistro said.

The feeding program has developed standardized recipes using malunggay and a 20-day cycle menu utilizing locally grown vegetables produced from school gardens.

The Education department, however, said that schools that are not identified as beneficiaries of the program may collaborate with the local government unit, nongovernment organizations, parent-teachers associations and other community stakeholders for the implementation of similar feeding programs.