By JADE RUSSELL 

Tribune Staff Reporter 

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

THE Davis administration is celebrating a milestone of 500,000 breakfasts served since the launch of the National School Breakfast Pilot Programme (NSBPP) in October 2023.

The initiative provides free breakfast to students nationwide.

Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis served breakfast to students at Yellow Elder Primary School yesterday. The children patiently lined up to receive plates of yellow grits with tuna salad, apples, oranges, and juice. As he handed out meals, Mr Davis chatted and smiled with the students.

The $1m programme was initially launched in New Providence at four primary schools and expanded to four Family Island schools in November 2023. In August 2024, education officials announced further expansion, including Yellow Elder Primary and four additional schools in New Providence.

Vice principal Nakisha Burrows told reporters the programme has contributed to incremental improvements in student academic performance. She believes nutritious meals fuel a child with the energy to focus and participate in the classroom.

Free breakfast is served three days a week, and all 455 students at Yellow Elder Primary can participate as needed. However, when asked whether attendance had improved since the programme’s introduction, she said she had not seen a significant improvement in attendance.

“We see a significant increase in our academic performance,” she said. “We have been incrementally getting better each year because we set a goal every year to increase by five percent, and we have been surpassing that. I can say that it is in part due to the breakfast programme.”

Acting District Superintendent of the Western New Providence Primary District Jermaine Butler highlighted how the programme benefits parents who struggle to prepare breakfast due to time constraints on busy mornings. He said the initiative helps ensure students arrive at school on time rather than stopping to buy breakfast beforehand.

Currently, the breakfast programme operates in 90 schools nationwide, including primary, all-age, and comprehensive schools. Officials said that 100 vendors had been hired for the programme.

The programme, in its initial stages, faced criticism on social media after images of some meals were circulated, with some comparing them to “jail food”, prompting pushback from government officials.

Minister of Education Glenys Hanna Martin has repeatedly celebrated the programme’s positive effects as one of the strategies used to promote student attendance and punctuality. In August 2024, she said participant schools in New Providence student attendance at the time had increased by 3.9 percent during the initial months of the programme. Family Island schools recorded an increase of 7.2 percent in attendance.