A meal in school with its effects on the enrolment, attendance and retention and the eradication of hunger has also an impact on the children‟s sexual health and nutrition
59 status. Learning in school is an alternative to idle life outside of school and getting drawn into social vices as some of the informants described.
5.3.1 GNSFP and HIV/AIDS reduction
On the issue of the GNSFP in relation to the reduction of the HIV/AIDS infection rate among the school children in both schools, the leaderships groups had divergent views.
According to the headmistress at Adumanu Primary School, and a member in the teach-er group at Ayaasi Primary School confirmed that,
Maybe their vision may be right. Sometimes these children put off their uniforms.
Some parents do not give their children money in this community where we have wee smokers; they can lure them to have sex with. I think if they have food to eat, they will not think about sex.
HIV-AIDS reduction or infection, the feed has potency to reduced HIV infection among the children in the school and the community at large. For example, instead of the children roaming in the community to hawk or being idle, the tendency for engaging in social vices such as drug abuse, rape, commercial sex activity and many more is great. So with school feeding in schools, it will serve as an incentive to moti-vate the children to school and in the long run minimize those vices.
However, some of the leadership groups in both schools disagreed with the notion that the school feeding programme had a long and short term impact on the HIV/AIDS in-fection rate among children. One of the respondents in the teacher group at Ayaasi and another at Adumau said,
No, the school feeding programme had no influence with HIV-AIDS infection or re-duction among the children in the school and community at large.
That to me, I think HIV and school feeding has no link, I think if food is given to the children, they will still go to other people for money. I think those of the children here are minor to think of that.
Notwithstanding this, it was evident that the majority of the school leadership groups explained that the school feeding programme had a positive impact in both the long and short term reduction in the HIV pandemic rate among the children. According to Jukes, Simmons and Bundy (2008, pp. 43-53), the South African School Feeding Programme and sex education had supported the reduction of the HIV-AIDS infection rate among the school children in the country, especially the girl children. In addition, the pro-gramme had reduced the HIV/AIDS vulnerability rate among the children because of the long hours they spent in the classrooms with enough food to rely on before, during
and after each learning process. The findings are consistent with the WFP, 2004, (pp. 5-10) on the school feeding programme and HIV-AIDS reduction. UNAIDS (2011, pp. 1-4) reports that the school feeding programme and lunches had a potency to minimise the HIV/AIDS virus infection rate among the school children. Although a section of the leadership groups described that the school feeding programme had no effect on the HIV reduction in both schools, however, the majority of the leadership groups described that the programme had a vital role to play in the HIV/AIDS reduction rate among the children in the sense that the children were no longer thinking about what to eat at school, which can lead them into commercial sex and other social vices in order to satis-fy their hunger.
5.3.2 Nutritional needs
Most of the leadership groups in the schools opined that the GNSFP had improved the nutritional needs of the children. The study reveals that the in-school meals and take home rations had made the children remain in the classrooms and also had the energy to concentrate for long hours in the classroom for learning. The headmaster group at Ayaasi Primary School replied,
I think when the children are well fed with balance nutritional meal, it repairs their worn out tissues and eventually improves children’s performance at school.
Almost all the leadership groups stated that the school feeding programme had a poten-cy to improve children‟s nutritional requirement and had made so in their schools. The findings on the nutritional needs were consistent with those of Rosso (1999, p. 2), Langinger (2011, p. 3) and Levy (2012, p. 2) earlier in the literature.
5.3.3 Iodine, deworming drugs and vitamin supplements
The headmaster at Ayaasi Primary School and a the assistant principal responded,
Ghana National School Feeding Programme does not provide vitamins and iodine to children as nutritional supplements in order to support children’s nutritional needs.
The programme has no deworming segment in this school.
I have not seen a day where such food supplements have been given to pupils in this school.
61 Though no food supplements are distributed by the GNSFP, the respondents addressed the belief that the supplements would be beneficial for the children‟s health needs. Ac-cording to the literature, the feeding programmes in South Africa, Kenya and Angola include the nutritional supplements to support the children‟s health needs. (WFP, 2007, pp. 41-42; Rosso 1999, p. 2; Langinger 2011, p. 3). This is in sharp contrast with what the leadership groups in both schools recounted on the GNSFP.