Kerre Woodham: Cost of school lunches is $325 million a year. Is it value for money?

The cost of school lunches is $325 million a year. Is it value for money? 

Anecdotally, some schools say yes, absolutely. 

They have seen levels of concentration improve, they have seen children able to settle into their class, that they are happier, that they are healthier. That's anecdotally. 

Treasury, who have crunched the numbers, says no, $325 million a year is not value for money.

A report into the lunches in schools scheme, which launched four years ago, shows there's been no impact on school attendance - that's what I was really hoping for.

For Māori learners there has not been better levels of concentration in class. Anecdotally, we might have heard that some teachers have seen improvements, but we've also heard anecdotally of teachers taking lunches home so they don't go to waste.

We’ve heard of lunches being donated to food banks and at least one pig farmer in the Waikato, building up a glossy, plump drift of pigs thanks to the drums of discarded school lunches that would otherwise have gone to the tip.

I am all for feeding hungry children. Every single time the six-year-old in my house says I'm hungry and I can feed him, I do not take it for granted, nor do his parents.  

They need food for their brains and their muscles to grow and if they're not getting it at home, all for them getting it at school.

But when we’re spending $325 million a year just so some kids don't feel whakamā or shame, so that a farmer's pigs can grow healthy, and we get the best bacon ever - there's got to be a better way of doing this. There really does. 

Jan Tinetti is quite wrong when she says any money spent on children is money well spent.

Quite clearly, quod erat demonstrandum, it is not. 

NOTE: This article has been updated to revise a statement suggesting the cost for the school lunch program was half of Pharmac’s budget.

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