The Ministry of Education yesterday advised the withdrawal of an essay competition asking children about how they had benefited from the free breakfast provided to them.
The withdrawal came after negative comments about it on social media.
While lauding the Edutrition’s Unit’s Breakfast for Success programme, the ministry said that the essay competition “may have inadvertently overlooked the sensitive nature of the issue and its potential impact on the students involved. The Ministry’s paramount duty is to make sure that the best interest of each child is always served and would revise its programme if there is even a small likelihood that said interests can be jeopardized”.
The ministry said it is committed to hearing the people it serves and to be responsive to their needs and as such it has advised the unit to withdraw the competition and engage the pupils in other creative ways.
The ministry said that the Edutrition unit had executed a “massively successful” programme where daily more than 26,700 breakfasts are delivered and more than 49,500 meals over the two periods of the National Grade Six Assessment 2024 were delivered.
“Without doubt this programme is a beautifully crafted and delivered programme that has at its core the equitable distribution of nutritious meals to all coastland children on a scale never undertaken before (hinterland children benefit from a hot meal programme)”, the ministry added.
The ministry thanked the officers and many ordinary Guyanese, mostly women, who work hard every day to make Edutrition the “success it clearly is”.
