CHENNAI: The Directorate of School Education has requested all high and higher secondary schools to take a count of students in classes 9 and 10 who consume afternoon meals under the Nutritious Meal Programme.
The department has urged all schools to upload the details of beneficiaries into the Tamil Nadu School Education Department (TNSED) app, which is the primary application for entering and tracking students, staff, and respective school data.
Meanwhile, a mid-day meal manager in one of the southern districts told DT Next that counting from classes 1-10 began almost 3 months ago by the School Education Department as per the instruction from the Social Welfare and Women Empowerment Department. “From the respective school, parents were given a consent/confirmation letter clarifying if their wards were consuming afternoon meals at the school. However, this was also abruptly stopped,” added the manager.
Currently, the noon meal is given to students of classes 1-10. The scheme, however, has not been extended for classes 11 and 12. But the department taking stock of the beneficiaries has raised eyebrows and questions among teachers, parents and stakeholders.
An official said, “With the scheme already in place, we’re ascertaining its effective implementation and consumption rate among children.”
On the other hand, it has also been observed that the social welfare department is yet to employ noon meal helpers in several districts, despite finishing the interview process long ago. Due to this, the existing staff report long hours and work overload.