Last updated on 05/11/2025
In this first instalment of a three part series Mokgadi Mogy Mashako explores the challenges faced by poor learners who are forced to study on empty stomachs
Zinhle Mthembu (not her real name) 11, walks thirty minutes from home through the streets of Newlands, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, to reach her school. She leaves just after dawn, her school bag bouncing against her back.
On the third day of term 4 (15 October 2025) she is eager for the warm breakfast served before lessons begin. Breakfast comprises soft porridge — a mix of maize meal and water. The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) provides a meal that is often their sole source of reliable food for the day to over 9.6 million learners in South Africa.
While nutritionists recommend only a little sugar, children often find the meal served with variations of milk, amasi, sugar, or salt based on regional recipes.
Zinhle giggles, saying there’s so little sugar she can barely taste it. Hunger is like a shadow; it follows children everywhere. For millions of learners, that shadow grows heavier when the adults responsible for feeding them fail to deliver.
She is in Grade 9, and is part of the larger collective of children the Department of Basic Education provides for — at a cost of under R5 per child per day. Zinhle shares her experience of hunger in the classroom.
“Sometimes in class, I feel dizzy and feel laziness befall me. There is this tummy ache that I don’t remember when it started, it would grumble like I have worms.”
Her story echoes across thousands of schools. Children describe the physical sensations of hunger in painful clarity from dizziness, a dry throat, a burning sensation in the stomach, and an overwhelming sleepiness that robs them of concentration.
Registered dietitian Jandri Barnard, who specialises in paediatric care, explains that these short-term feelings can have longer-term consequences. Frequent skipping of meals, she says, can lead to immediate effects like fatigue, headaches, and poor concentration, but also long-term conditions such as stunted growth, malnutrition, weakened immunity, and increased risk of chronic diseases.
“There is a deep relationship between hunger and health, and the impact of even a short period of childhood hunger can last a lifetime,” she says.
Approximately 9.6 million learners in South Africa are fed daily through the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) at a cost of R5 per child per day. Recent statistics show that around 27 % of South African children under five years old are stunted due to chronic under-nutrition.
KwaZulu-Natal, a province of rolling green hills and bustling coastal towns, serves more than 2.04 million learners under the NSNP. Yet it is also where the system’s cracks have repeatedly shown. In July 2025, logistical failures and contract disputes caused widespread meal delivery delays, leaving thousands of learners across the province without food for days.
Though the province has a high education budget share, schools often ration or substitute ingredients to ensure every child is fed and none are turned away.
A principal in KwaMashu explains that “the department goes by what’s on paper, but we have more children attending than registered. Some don’t have ID numbers because their mothers left them with grandmothers, or their birth certificates were never processed. We can’t turn them away. So we make it work.”
This problem of undocumented children has ripple effects across the education system. Without proper documentation, they cannot be counted in official NSNP records, nor can they register for final examinations later. Naledi, who is friends with Zinhle, describes how hunger affects her learning.
“I feel hungry…in class I can’t focus.”
She dreams of escaping this struggle by becoming an actress, and admits she watches TV when stressed about hunger.
Teachers also reported that funding allocations — known as norms and standards — began arriving in inconsistent batches rather than full consignments, making it difficult to plan meals.
“It’s suspicious,” one teacher said, “because before, when the School Governing Body managed the NSNP, food was delivered on time.”
Different plates, same hunger
Hundreds of kilometres north, in Limpopo’s Capricorn District, Junior has his own view of the meals. “I would replace some meals with pap and beef stew,” he says with a grin. “That’s a tasty meal.”
Junior loves football, but like any child, he admits that it’s difficult to play on an empty stomach. His mother, Awedzani, a hairdresser who came to South Africa from Ghana 15 years ago, says the feeding scheme reminds her of home.
Ghana introduced its School Feeding Programme in 2005, which now reaches over 2.9 million children daily. “When I was in school back at home, we didn’t have feeding schemes,” she says. “It placed pressure on parents to make sure we had food and everything else for school.”
Junior said the school meal sometimes makes him vomit.
“I don’t like some of the food at school because I don’t know why it sometimes makes me sick.”
According to UNICEF, one in four children under five in South Africa is stunted due to chronic malnutrition.
Nationally, stunting contributes to child mortality rates that remain unacceptably high, with roughly 27 deaths per 1,000 live births. Globally, the World Health Organization reports that in 2024, at least 733 million people faced hunger, while the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 307 million Africans — more than one in five — went hungry.
Barnard emphasizes that the impact of hunger is not only physical but also psychological. “These effects can significantly hinder a learner’s academic performance, mood, and long-term potential to complete their schooling career,” she stated. In classrooms across the country, learners dream of futures far beyond the empty plates of their present. Lebo, a Grade 10 learner from Moletši in Limpopo, wants to study tourism. She provides a practical view on the school meals.
“It makes sense that our school serves the same bananas and oranges all the time, because those are easier to count.”
She also links hunger to classroom disruption.
“We can see when we dish, they ask for extra. The children who are disruptive in class are usually the ones who are hungry.”
Even those from better-off backgrounds understand hunger’s reach. Lwandle, a teenager from Johannesburg’s northern suburbs, attends a private school. He admits that he sometimes goes to school without having eaten because of early transport schedules.
“Our school donates food to help other children,” he says shyly. “Usually I donate juice and beans.” His words show that hunger, in all its forms, transcends class and geography.
Lebo adds one more thought for the future: “Since we now have breakfast at school, maybe one day they can also give us sandwiches in the afternoon, because we stay longer for study.”
A Glimmer of Hope
When Zinhle is served her favourite meal, the rice and tin fish make her eyes beam. Yet, it is the hope for a focused future that illuminates her small figure more than any meal.How can South Africa ensure every child’s hope is matched by the reliable nutrition they need to learn and thrive?
This story was supported by Media Monitoring Africa, and forms Part 1 of 3 of the series titled Hunger Versus Learning.
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