Abstract
Associate Minister of Education, David Seymour wants to cut funding to the Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunch Programme by 30-50%, claiming it does not improve attendance or school achievement.
In part two of a three-part series, we highlight that the programme evaluations commissioned by the Government have never sought to evaluate impact on school achievement. In the absence of direct impact evaluation, we present findings from three large-scale international studies, describing the compelling relationship between hunger in schools in Aotearoa New Zealand and achievement, linking this back to the need for food poverty interventions like Ka Ora, Ka Ako. This is particularly important for ākonga Māori, who make up half of the students receiving the lunches, and for whom, lower on average achievement is exacerbated by higher rates of food poverty.