School meals must tackle inequality, not reproduce it

Pupils are served food through Food4Education programme in Dagoretti South. [File, Standard]

Equity does not mean giving every child the same thing in the same way. In public policy, equity means understanding where exclusion is deepest and deliberately designing for those most likely to be missed. In school meals, equity means designing programmes so that the children most in need are reached first.

Kenya’s growing investment in school meals is one of the most important public commitments to children’s welfare. A meal at school does more than satisfy hunger. It serves nutrition, education, social protection and dignity on one plate. For a hungry child, it can mean the difference between listening in class and staring blankly at the blackboard. For a struggling parent, it can mean one less daily worry.

But as school meal programmes expand, we must ask a difficult question: are we reaching the children who need them most?

In Nairobi’s informal settlements, many children are being left out not because they are less vulnerable, but because they attend schools outside formal public systems. A policy brief released by TMG Research highlights this blind spot in Mukuru, where over 70 per cent of primary school-age children attend low-cost complementary schools rather than public schools. These schools exist because public schools in Mukuru are too few, overcrowded, too far away, or difficult for young children to access safely.

Yet when school meal programmes are delivered mainly through public schools, children in these complementary schools fall through the cracks. They are excluded twice: first from adequate public education infrastructure accessible to them, and then from school meals delivered through public schools.

This is how inequality can still manifest even within well-intentioned policy initiatives. A programme may be universal in ambition and still unequal in effect. It may reach many children while missing those most in need.

This is not an argument against public school feeding programmes. We commend current public investment in school meals and advocate for even greater investment by both national and county governments. But if we are to achieve the target of universal school meal coverage, the design of school meal programmes must ensure that they reach the most vulnerable children where they are. A hungry child should not be invisible because the school they attend is considered informal.

Equity requires deliberate targeting, backed by sustainable design. Coverage alone is not enough. We must ask who is covered, who is not, and why. No school context is too difficult to reach when the intention is to reach every child. Even in informal settlements, where roads are narrow, school infrastructure is limited, and parent incomes are low and unreliable, it is possible to design models that work. In such challenging contexts, design is the difference between a programme that reaches all children and one that quietly excludes some.

In Mukuru, a community-led model tested across six complementary schools showed what is possible when design begins with reality. Meals were prepared through a shared kitchen and distributed to participating schools, ensuring cost efficiency and affordability. Parents and schools were involved in menu decisions, pricing and oversight. Local organisations helped bridge the trust gap between schools and parents. This led to an arrangement in which parents covered the cost of the meal, ensuring the programme's sustainability.  The Mukuru example demonstrates that context-sensitive models can reach children missed by standard models.

Parents can help sustain school meals when the price is fair, the programme is transparent, and they have a real voice in how it is run. But parent contributions should never become the condition that determines whether a child eats.

That is why school meal programmes need clear safeguards. Some children will require full support, others partial support. The goal is not to charge every family the same; it is to make sure every child is included.

Community-led models like the one tested in Mukuru show how local leadership can strengthen school meals. But they should not replace public responsibility. They should help public support reach further, especially to children that formal systems still fail to see.

The message is simple: school meals must be built around children, not around the convenience of existing systems. Kenya should continue investing boldly while ensuring that the children in the most challenging contexts are being reached.

That means recognising that children learn in different kinds of schools, especially in informal settlements. It means learning from different models, including community-led approaches, county programmes and school-based innovations, so that school meals can be designed better for different realities. No single model will solve every problem.

The strongest school meals system will be one that is public in responsibility, local in understanding, flexible in design and firm in its promise that every child matters.

Because in the end, the measure of success is not how many plates are served where delivery is easy. It is whether the child in the hardest-to-reach classroom is also able to eat, learn, and belong. No child should go hungry because public policy does not recognise their classroom.

- The writers are researchers at TMG Research