School food in Saint Kitts and Nevis consists of a school meal programme coordinated by the Ministry of Education. In Saint Kitts, there is a centralized school meals centre that provides daily hot lunches to all primary schoolchildren, and to targeted students from vulnerable households in secondary schools. In Nevis, the school meal programme is community-based and only targeted at primary schoolchildren. In secondary schools, students bring food from home or purchase it from vendors. There are currently no nutrition guidelines in place to regulate types of food prepared in and around schools.
Food and nutrition are integrated into both Health and Family Life Education, and more recently into the Health and Wellness framework, which is designed to integrate health and physical literacy into the curriculum from pre-primary to secondary school.
School Food
Saint Kitts and Nevis has a national School Meal Programme that was first set up in 1982 to provide a free daily hot lunch to all primary schoolchildren, and to targeted students from vulnerable households in secondary schools in Saint Kitts. In Nevis, the school meal programme does not operate in secondary schools. The programme is managed and coordinated by the Ministry of Education. Pre-primary schoolchildren are not covered by the national programme except by government-owned early childhood facilities where they provide a free hot lunch daily.
The meal content and modalities vary between the two islands:
In Saint Kitts, the larger island, the programme employs a centralized food preparation modality, via a School Meals Centre, which is managed by a coordinator and other government staff. A central school farm operates in St Kitts and provides fresh produce for school meals. These meals are distributed to schools where they are plated up and served to children, either in lunchrooms or classrooms.
A two-week menu cycle is currently in place to prepare the meals although a new proposal for a four-week menu cycle has been made. The meals need to provide four out of the six Caribbean food groups (staples, animal foods, vegetables and legumes) ensuring two-, three-, or four-mix combinations (e.g., two-mix meals include a cereal grain + legumes or animal foods, or ground provisions (tubers) + animal foods etc.). An example of the current menu and the new proposal is described below:
Saint Kitts School Meals/Feeding Programme Menu (current)
Week 1
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
Spaghetti Stewed chicken Tossed salad | Chicken soup (breadfruit, sweet & white potato, green banana, pumpkin, Yam, dumplings, dasheen, carrots) | Rice & peas Stewed turkey wings Tossed salad | Cook-up (red peas) Tossed salad | Cheese & bread Watermelon, orange (slices) |
Week 2
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
Cook-up (pink peas) Tossed salad | Turkey neck soup (sweet & white potato, green Banana, pumpkin, Yam, dasheen, carrots) | Rice & peas Stewed turkey wings Tossed salad | Cook-up (red peas) Tossed salad | Hot dog Watermelon, orange (slices) |
Revamping the menu is mandatory. Incorporating more vegetables, fruits, seasoning and a variety of meat can aid in enhancing the meals. Following, is a proposal for a new menu as well.
Proposed Menu
St Kitts School Meals/Feeding Programme Menu (Proposal)
Week 1
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
Mashed potatoes Stewed chicken Steamed vegetables, sliced cucumber & tomato | Beef Soup (white potato, green banana, dumplings, carrots, pumpkin) Alternatives Sweet potatoes Yam, dasheen, breadfruit | Rice & peas Stewed turkey wings Tossed salad | Cook-up (red peas) Tossed salad | Hot Dog Bread Lettuce and tomato Watermelon, Orange (slices) |
Week 2
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
Turkey neck soup (white potato, green banana, dumplings, carrots, pumpkin) Alternatives Sweet potatoes Yam, dasheen | Pumpkin rice Stewed chicken Steamed vegetables, sliced cucumber & tomato
| Macaroni pie Stewed turkey wings Tossed salad | Cook-up (pink peas) | Hamburger (lettuce and tomato) Watermelon, orange (slices) |
Week 3
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
Mashed potatoes Fish (12 schools) Chicken (12 schools) Steamed vegetables, sliced cucumber & tomato | Chicken soup (white potato, green banana, dumplings, carrots, pumpkin) Alternatives Sweet potatoes, yam, dasheen, breadfruit | Greens & rice Stewed turkey wings Sautéed vegetable | Cook-up (red peas) | Bar- BQ Chicken & Bread Watermelon, orange (slices) |
Week 4
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
Carrot rice Stewed chicken Tossed salad | Mutton soup (white potato, green banana, dumplings, carrots, pumpkin) Alternatives Sweet potatoes | Mashed potatoes Stewed turkey wings/chicken Tomato, lettuce, cucumber | Cook-up (lentils) | Tuna & bread Watermelon, orange (slices) |
In Nevis, the school programme employs a community-based modality with hot lunches prepared and served in schools by government-paid staff. Each primary school has a designated lunchroom. Although the Ministry of Education subsidises the programme in Nevis, parents make a financial contribution for food purchases and non-food supplies. School principals are responsible for programme management and operations, including food procurement, menu planning, supervision of cooks in the meal preparation and food service, and preparation of monitoring reports for the Ministry of Education. In Nevis, there are stronger links with smallholder farmers, which has resulted in higher procurement of locally-grown produce, with support from the Ministry of Agriculture. An example of Nevis menus.
Apart from the school meal programme, children in Saint Kitts and Nevis may also bring food from home or purchase from vendors outside the school grounds. There are currently no nutrition guidelines or standards that define or regulate the types of foods that are sold and prepared in and around schools in the country.
However, in 2019, the Healthy Caribbean Coalition conducted a rapid assessment of the school nutrition policy environment in Saint Kitts and Nevis, which highlighted the absence/inadequacy of supportive policies relating to school nutrition. In response, the Government is developing a School Nutrition Policy (currently in draft form), which will seek to articulate a comprehensive framework of policies and programmes to promote and support improved child nutrition in the school setting. Key policy objectives are to develop and implement national nutrition standards, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, for all food and meals served in schools based on the country’s Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (2010) (there are plans to revise these) and current global scientific guidance.
In addition, the Ministry of Health has organized trainings for food vendors in both Saint Kitts and Nevis to improve their offer of healthy options, and there are plans in the draft School Nutrition Policy to regulate their activity. In Nevis, some schools have put in place their own policies to improve the food environment, e.g., cafeteria rules that ban sugar-sweetened beverages or confectionery.
School-Based Food and Nutrition Education
Food and nutrition topics are integrated into the subject of Health and Family Life Education, which is provided from pre-primary up to grade 3 students, as well as within sciences and social studies. However, in 2019 the Curriculum Development Unit within the Ministry of Education’s Planning Division developed a Health and Wellness framework for integrating health and physical literacy across all school grades. Food and nutrition education is now mainly integrated within the Health and Wellness framework in Saint Kitts and Nevis, which is taught from pre-primary up to secondary level (grade 10). From grade 9 onwards, students have the option of choosing the elective syllabus on Food, Nutrition and Health, which is part of the subject of Home Economics.
| Main targets |
|
| Main educators | Teachers |
| Integration within the school curriculum | As part of one subject:
Through extracurricular activities. |
| Learning Outcomes | Healthy Eating (Health and Wellness) Students will demonstrate knowledge, skills and positive values related to healthy eating, particularly as they relate to a healthy self. |
Development
The low implementation of the Health and Family Life Education subject, within the context of high rates of non-communicable diseases in the country, prompted the Curriculum Development Unit within the Saint Kitts Education Planning Division to develop a Health and Wellness framework integrating health and physical literacy across all school grades. The unit worked closely with the Education Department in Nevis so both islands can use the same curriculum (Saint Kitts and Nevis is a two-island country). Stakeholder consultations, including with academics from Canada, guided the development of the subject curriculum and the assessment framework. The curriculum is based on international education standards from organizations such as UNESCO and the World Health Organization. It was reviewed by the Ministry of Health and piloted in all public primary schools and most private schools in Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2020-2021.
The first Health and Wellness curriculum was developed for primary school grades 4-6, with a version for pre-primary to grade 2 level currently under development, and the version for grade 3 being reviewed. For secondary schools, the Health and Wellness curriculum has been developed up to grade 10, and roll-out is planned for 2024. This new curriculum aims to provide teachers with complete guidance, which includes specific learning activities and assessments, to ensure compliance.
The Health and Wellness curriculum framework includes two separate strands, one for health literacy and another for physical literacy, which are in turn divided into the following components:
Health and Wellness Curriculum Framework
| Physical literacy | Physical competence
Active living
|
| Health Literacy | Healthy self
Healthy relationships
Healthy community
|
Implementation
The Curriculum Development Unit and the Education Department are the entities responsible for curriculum implementation. Teachers are the main front-line educators and may also bring into class external experts, such as community nurses, to provide examples of practical experience and discussions on topics like non-communicable diseases. Schools generally develop their own programme to support the implementation of the curriculum.
The Health and Wellness curriculum is characterized by a life-skills approach and includes both theoretical and practical components. Students have 35-40 minutes sessions three times a week for health literacy and physical education respectively, for a total of about four hours per week dedicated to the whole subject.
The topics most closely related to food and nutrition are integrated within the “Healthy Self” component and “Healthy Eating” sub-component. The relevant learning outcomes are described as follows:
Learning outcomes related to "Healthy Self"
| Healthy habits | From pre-primary to grade 2:
Grades 3 and 4:
Grades 5 and 6:
|
| Healthy eating | From pre-primary to grade 2:
Grades 3 and 4:
Grades 5 and 6:
|
The knowledge (K), skills (S) and values (V) to be acquired from grades 3 to 6 in the subcomponent of “Healthy Eating” can be found here.
The content, learning outcomes and suggested teaching and learning activities of the Food, Nutrition and Health component within the Home Economics syllabus can be found here.
Some examples of extracurricular activities carried out at the school level include “Water Day” and “Fruit Day”, during which children bring food to school. A “healthy heroes' campaign” has been piloted in schools to promote fresh fruit and vegetables, supported by a video on choosing nutritious foods instead of highly processed foods, and a dance competition promoting drinking water instead of sugar-sweetened drinks.
The Ministry of Agriculture had begun a pilot in five schools to introduce agriculture at the primary school level, as well as to promote school gardening; however, the project has been discontinued due to administrative changes.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The Ministry of Education is developing guidelines and assessments for the Health and Wellness curriculum and aims to support schools by monitoring school visits through education officers. Data is being collected to evaluate the curriculum’s effectiveness, but the work is still in progress as the curriculum has not yet been integrated across all grades.
Students from grade 9 onwards who choose the Food, Nutrition and Health syllabus for Home Economics have to take a Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate written exam with a practical component.
Relevant Links
- FAO in Saint Kitts and Nevis
- FAOLEX in Sant Kitts and Nevis
- The Right to food in Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF): School meal programme profile of Saint Kitts and Nevis (2021)
- Saint Kitts and Nevis on RAES
Publications
A review of school feeding programmes in the Caribbean Community
This review provides a snapshot of the state-of-art of School Feeding Programmes in 14 of the 15 CARICOM Member States. It provides an overview of the different models of school feeding programmes that currently exist in the Caribbean, challenges faced and recommendations for improvement.