Provide Nutritious Meals to Every Secondary-School Student

A child who is hungry or poorly nourished cannot be expected to learn effectively. Inadequate nutrition can affect concentration, energy, attendance, physical development, and academic performance, while food insecurity can also contribute to children leaving school to work or support their families.

Nutrition support is particularly important during adolescence, when children undergo significant physical and cognitive development. Secondary education cannot deliver its intended outcomes if students arrive at school hungry or do not receive adequate nutrition during the school day.

India should ensure that every student in government and government-aided secondary schools has access to nutritious meals during the school day, extending comprehensive school nutrition support through the completion of secondary education.

Meals should be designed around defined nutritional standards for adolescents, providing adequate calories, protein, vegetables, fruits and essential micronutrients rather than simply providing enough food to satisfy hunger. Menus should reflect regional diets and locally available foods while meeting common national nutritional standards.

Where students commonly arrive at school without having eaten, schools should provide breakfast in addition to lunch. Regular health and nutritional screening should help identify students suffering from deficiencies or undernutrition so that additional support can be provided.

Food quality, hygiene and nutritional content should be independently monitored, with transparent standards and accountability. Where practical, schools should source food locally, creating links with local farmers, cooperatives and community food systems.

The principle should be straightforward: no child should be expected to learn on an empty stomach.

The United States provides a useful example. Its National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program provide federally supported meals to tens of millions of children through schools, with free or reduced-price meals available based on need. School meals have become an integral part of the education and child-support system rather than being treated as separate from education.

Research on school-meal programs has found benefits associated with food security, diet quality and students’ ability to participate effectively in school, while breakfast programs can help ensure that children begin the school day ready to learn.

India already has substantial experience providing meals to younger schoolchildren. The next principle should be to ensure that nutrition support does not end simply because a child enters adolescence. If India wants students to remain in secondary school and benefit fully from the investment being made in their education, ensuring that they are adequately nourished is one of the most fundamental places to start.