Minister Fahie and Principal Of ESHS Melissa Amey interact with students at yesterday's tour of the Lunch Programme.

Speaking to Virgin Islands News Online during a media tour of the programme on Thursday September 15, 2011, where Minister for Education and Culture Andrew Fahie was also on hand, Principal Amey said the programme, which was introduced for the new school year, has been “flowing as if it was here before”.

The programme, Minister Fahie had said in his message to schools for the new school term, will allow confirmation with the Education Act which refers to the Government being responsible for students during school hours. “In addition, this course of action will allow for us to meaningfully address a number of social ills that were beginning to mushroom during the time our students left the school compound particularly during the lunch hour. We will exhaust all efforts to ensure that this school lunch programme is successful. This initiative will also assist significantly in our students having more quality instructional time.”

The intended objectives, according to Amey, have already begun to manifest including timeliness to classes, social camaraderie and a general peaceful atmosphere around the school. “What we find is that the students appreciate the fact they don’t have to walk down the road for fifteen minutes, wait a long time before they come back…they do not have to walk in the heat as well…the management of the school and the environment itself is so much more quiet than before, which we are surprised at because now the students are always here.”

Minister Fahie was able to get a feedback directly from students on the Lunch Programme during a media tour yesterday.

The Principal also said that the students are able to get more instruction time “because those students that go for lunch would come back late. So on any given day we would have almost a hundred students coming back to school late last year. This year because they don’t leave they have more time in the class because there is no way to go because when they finish at the tents they have five minutes to get to class and it does not take that long. So I find it is beneficial in terms of the safety, knowing where the students are all the time, more instructional time in class and the school environment is very quiet and peaceful”.

She said the programme also facilitates the students to socialise with each other more “because before when they had to leave campus they would have to go find lunch and by the time they came back, they only had a few minutes to eat before going to class”.

One of the concerns she said the students had was the elimination of the 15-minute morning break. “The lunch programme forced us to change the schedule so instead of them having a break they just simply go from class to class. But there is five minutes in between of each class so what we encourage the students to do and their parents is to make sure they have a good breakfast and that they walk with snacks and fruits, which they could have during that five minute interval between classes.”

Junior and senior students go to lunch at different times with the 3rd, 4th and 5th formers going at 11a.m. for 50 minutes while the 1st and 2nd forms students take lunch at noon for a duration of one hour.

Asked about the reaction to the new initiative by parents, Amey said they were concerned about the availability of microwaves for students that take lunch to school. “They (students) were using the offices but now we have one set location where we have a number of microwaves available to the students and we find that more students are bringing lunch every day. We are seeing the lunch bags appearing more and more and we are very pleased about that too.”

Principal Amey also disclosed that an average of only 38 students or 3 percent of the student population are taken out of the compound by their parents during the lunch hours, which does not really hamper the objectives of the programme.

“There were many factors that had to be taken into consideration in putting the lunch programme together but I must say I am glad that the ministry felt that this initiative had to be done and everything fell in place,” Principal Amey said.