Faridkot: Chana-poori mid-day meal eating into teaching time
Balwant Garg
Faridkot, January 4
The new menu of the mid-day meal scheme in government and aided schools has left teachers high and dry. As the schools were asked to provide hot fluffy ‘pooris’ with black chana mixed with potatoes to all students, many teachers were seen helping cook-cum-helpers in preparing pooris after the recess.
While many teachers were busy with the cooks, others were ensuring that no student drinks cold water after this oily food. The teachers were seen serving lukewarm water to students.
As per new instructions by the School Education Department, about 19 lakh students will be provided poori-chana every Wednesday under the mid-day meal scheme.
Teachers said providing deep-fried hot pooris to students in a school, where the number of cook-cum-helpers is limited to 3 for 125-140 students, was a big challenge.
Generally, the meal is served to the students after fifth period (during the recess time). But when it comes to serving hot pooris to the students, there was no class in most schools after the fifth period as the teachers were busy in serving these to the students, said Surinder Singh Puari, state president, Government School Teachers Union.
There was no application of mind before including hot pooris in the mid-day meal menu. While cold pooris were without any taste, providing hot pooris to all students within 40 minutes of recess time was next to impossible with limited strength of cook-cum-helpers in the schools, said Prem Chawla, adviser of the union. Their study is also suffering.
