Nutrition
Hungry pupils, weak Policies: Why education reform must start with nutrition
In every district across Ghana, children sit in classrooms with their books open but their minds closed off by hunger. Teachers try their best, parents make sacrifices, and government rolls out curriculum reforms.
Yet the invisible barrier remains: an empty plate. Nutrition is the silent factor sabotaging Ghana’s education system, and until policymakers treat it as such, the promise of quality education will remain unfulfilled.
Picture a classroom in rural Ghana. A young boy sits at his desk, his head resting on his arms. His teacher calls on him to read, but his voice is faint and his words stumble. He has not had a proper breakfast. At home, the family eats mostly starchy staples, with little protein or micronutrients. His body is present in school, but his mind is absent.
The missing piece in education policy
Education reforms often focus on infrastructure, teacher training, or examination standards. But without nutrition, these investments deliver half their potential. A child who is stunted in the first five years of life enters school already disadvantaged, their brain underdeveloped, their ability to concentrate impaired. For adolescent girls, anemia robs them of energy, increasing absenteeism and weakening their future prospects.
This is not just a health issue. It is a policy failure when education strategy ignores nutrition. Policymakers must recognise that learning outcomes are directly tied to what children eat before and during school hours.
School Feeding: A missed opportunity
The Ghana School Feeding Programme was designed to bridge this gap, and it has succeeded in drawing children into classrooms. But too often the meals are monotonous, nutrient-deficient, and unbalanced, providing calories without nourishment. A plate of plain rice may temporarily silence hunger pangs, but it cannot build sharp minds or strong bodies.
Here lies the policy challenge: the programme must shift from feeding for numbers to feeding for nutrition. That requires clear standards, consistent funding, and strong monitoring to ensure that meals truly meet the needs of growing children.
What leaders must do
If Ghana wants to close its education gaps, nutrition must be integrated into the core of education planning. This means:
Making nutrition a key performance indicator in the Ministry of Education’s agenda.
Revising school feeding contracts to demand balanced meals with proteins, vegetables, and micronutrients.
Aligning agriculture policy with school meals, so local farmers supply diverse, nutritious foods.
Ensuring that adolescent girls receive iron supplementation through schools to combat anemia.
A call to stakeholders
Parliament must treat school nutrition with the same urgency as curriculum reforms. District assemblies must prioritise nutritious meal provision in their education budgets. Development partners and CSOs must hold government accountable for not just how many children are fed, but how well they are nourished.
Because the truth is simple: Ghana cannot build a skilled workforce, a competitive economy, or a prosperous future on the foundation of hungry, undernourished children.
The future of our education system does not begin with textbooks or blackboards. It begins with a plate of food, and the policies that ensure it is nourishing.
Feature article by Women, Media and Change under its Nourish Ghana: Advocating for Increased Leadership to Combat Malnutrition Project in collaboration with Eleanor Crook Foundation
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Ghana’s economic conversations often focus on fiscal policy, investment, and productivity. But there is a cost that rarely enters these conversations.
The crippling, compounding cost of malnutrition. According to the Cost of Hunger in Africa (COHA) study, a landmark analysis conducted jointly by the African Union, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, WFP, and UNICEF, malnutrition drains an estimated 6.4 per cent from Ghana’s GDP every year. That is not a nutrition statistic. That is a national economic crisis hiding in plain sight.
What malnutrition actually costs
Malnutrition costs Ghana in ways that are both direct and deeply structural. Stunted children underperform in school, earn less as adults, and are more likely to raise malnourished children of their own, perpetuating a cycle that spans generations. Anaemic women are less productive in the workplace. Malnourished mothers give birth to low-birth-weight babies who face higher rates of illness, hospitalisation, and death. Diet-related diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease are rising fast, placing a mounting burden on Ghana’s health system and workforce.
The cost of inaction on malnutrition globally is estimated at $41 trillion over the next decade, according to the World Bank’s Investment Framework for Nutrition 2024. a figure that far outweighs the $13 billion annually needed to scale up proven nutrition interventions. For Ghana, the 6.4 per cent of GDP figure represents billions of cedis lost each year through reduced productivity, increased healthcare costs, and compromised human capital.
A problem that pays to solve
The economic case for investing in nutrition is overwhelming. Every dollar invested in nutrition returns an estimated $16 to the local economy. Scaling up proven nutrition interventions such as breastfeeding support, micronutrient supplementation, school feeding, treatment of acute malnutrition, is not charity. It is one of the highest-return investments a government can make.
Ghana’s commitment at the 2025 N4G Paris Summit to spend $6 million annually on nutrition commodities is a start. But $6 million against a problem that costs the economy billions each year is a fraction of what is needed. Ghana’s finance and planning ministries must be brought into the nutrition conversation, not just the health ministry.
A 6.4 per cent GDP loss would trigger emergency cabinet meetings if it came from any other sector. Malnutrition demands the same urgency. Ghana must stop treating nutrition as a health programme and start treating it as the economic and development priority it truly is.
Feature article by Women, Media and Change under its Nourish Ghana: Advocating for Increased Leadership to Combat Malnutrition project
Coconut oil is the oil extracted from raw or dried coconut. At room temperature, pure coconut oil is sold in jars rather than bottles. When heated, it softens or melts, depending on the degree of warmth.
Coconut oil is rich in fatty acids, and contains around 90 per cent saturated fat. It’s almost 50 per cent lauric acid, and also contains about seven other types. The oil is used in beauty products for the skin and hair, as well as for cooking. It can also be used in biofuel.
– Contains medium-chain fatty acids
Coconut oil is different from other dietary oils, because it is mainly composed of medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), whereas most other oils are almost entirely long-chain fatty acids. This means that the fatty acids in coconut oil are made up of a chain of six to 12 carbon atoms, as opposed to the more than 12 found in long-chain fatty acids. This difference in structure has all sorts of implications, including how the oil is digested to how it influences your body.
-Has anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties
About 50 per cent of the medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs) in coconut oil are a type called lauric acid, which contributes to the oil’s anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties.
– Skin conditions
Limited but consistent evidence appears to support the topical use of coconut oil for the prevention and treatment of mild to moderate cases of chronic skin conditions, such as atopic dermatitis. It has also been shown to alleviate some complex skin conditions, such as eczema or psoriasis.
-Protects hair from damage
The lauric acid in coconut oil appears to have a high affinity for hair protein and, because of the way the oil is structured, is able to penetrate inside the hair shaft. This means coconut oil and products made from it may be useful in preventing the hair damage caused by protein loss due to grooming and ultraviolet (UV) exposure. However, more studies are needed to confirm this effect.
– Prevention of dental caries
Oil pulling is a traditional ayurvedic remedy originally practised in ancient India for the maintenance of oral health. More recent studies suggest the practice of using coconut oil may be beneficial for the prevention of dental caries by reducing plaque formation and gingivitis. However, limitations in sample sizes and duration means a larger number of well-designed randomised controlled trials are needed to determine the true value of coconut oil for this purpose. Healthline.com
