List of Headings
- i Why better food helps students' learning
- ii Becoming the headmaster of Msekeni
- iii Surprising use of school premises
- iv Global perspective
- v Why students were undernourished
- vi Surprising academic outcome
- vii An innovative program to help girls
- viii How food program is operated
- ix How food program affects school attendance
- x None of the usual reasons
- xi How to maintain academic standard
Passage
Drag a heading to each paragraph.
1. It might seem odd that one of the school's purpose-built classrooms has been emptied of pupils and turned into a storeroom for sacks of grain.
2. No war lays waste Malawi, nor is the land unusually crowded or infertile, but Malawians still have trouble finding enough to eat.
3. Local volunteers do the cooking—turning the dry ingredients into a bland but nutritious slop, and spooning it out on to plastic plates held by queued children.
4. When the school's feeding programme was introduced, enrollment at Msekeni doubled.
5. When the influx of new pupils is not accompanied by any increase in the number of teachers, as was the case at Msekeni, you would expect standards to fall even further. But they have not. Pass rates at Msekeni improved dramatically, from 30% to 85%.
6. Better nutrition makes for brighter children. Most immediately well-fed children find it easier to concentrate.
7. Three centuries ago, chronic malnutrition was more or less universal. Now, it is extremely rare in rich countries. In developing countries, where most people live, plates and rice bowls are also fuller than ever before.