School food in Nauru consists of a cooked lunch delivered to over two thirds of children in public schools via its government-funded school meal programme. School Food Guidelines provide off-site caterers with guidance on preparing nutritious meals and cover school lunches as well as tuck shops. These are based on the Pacific Guidelines for Healthy Living.
Food and nutrition education is integrated within the national curriculum through the subject of general sciences, biology and physical education in primary grades.
School Food
Nauru has a National School Meal Programme, which began in 2013 with private sector funding and became a government-funded programme in 2014. Free lunches and a weekly allowance were introduced to encourage school attendance after a decline in the 1990s. The programme currently covers 75–99% of children in public schools, from pre-primary through to secondary level, and is managed by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Medical Services. The Government provides funding for private caterers to deliver cooked school lunches to children five days a week, based on a menu cycle. Fresh products, such as fruit and vegetables, can be challenging as 90% of food in the island is imported and there are issues with food supply and increasing costs. The meals are cooked off-site as schools in Nauru do not have kitchen facilities.
In 2020 the country launched its first Nauru School Food Guidelines, which are based on the Pacific Guidelines for Healthy Living (2018). The guidelines provide information on the preparation of safe and nutritious school meals, as well as a template for the monitoring methods to ensure compliance. They also include guidelines for tuck shops that cover prohibited foods. Students are not allowed to leave the school premises to purchase food during lunchtime.
The main characteristics of these guidelines are summarized below:
| Users of the guidance |
|
| School food covered |
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| Objectives |
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| Basis | Food-Based |
| Food groups covered | Energy foods (starchy staples); protective foods (all vegetables & fruits); body-building foods (protein-rich foods) |
| Other guidance included | They also include recommendations on portion sizes and food safety |
Development process
The voluntary guidelines were developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Medical Services and the Ministry of Education, with support from WHO, FAO, the Pacific Community (or SPC, the principal scientific and technical organisation in the Pacific region) and the Taiwan Technical Mission (Taiwan’s development assistance programme). They were developed based on the need to have clear guidelines in place for school caterers to help them in the provision of student meals. The guidelines are stand-alone, although the development process is ongoing and responsive to changes in the policy environment, so there may be a review in 2023.
Implementation
The Ministry of Education and the school principals are responsible for ensuring the implementation of the standards. Cooks/caterers are required to have certification on nutrition and food safety/hygiene. Training of caterers is conducted bi-annually and organised by the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the Taiwan Technical mission who have their own dietician and staff working in the agriculture sector as well as a farm growing local crops. Training using the school food guidelines involves showcasing menus that use local fruits and vegetables as a cheaper (and often healthier) alternative to imported foods; and demonstrations on healthier methods of preparing meals. Regular cooking demonstrations are also part of encouraging awareness in communities on preparing nutritious meals and using homegrown foods. The Technical mission, in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture, has a home gardening programme which it is starting to introduce into schools and encourage links with the school meal programme.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The Ministry of Education is also the entity responsible for ensuring compliance with the guidelines. School caterers under contract with the Ministry of Education are required to follow these guidelines and to share menu cycles, production records and meal counts, for payment approval: the Ministry can deduct money if caterers are not following the guidelines, although in reality this is difficult to enforce due to problems with food supplies and conflicts of interest involving businesses. Inspection of school canteens is coordinated by both the Ministries of Health and Education, with termly inspections (unannounced) of a percentage of school meal sites and tuck shops. Methods used for monitoring and evaluation include documentation review, meal counts and serving of ‘prohibited’ food/drinks.
Schoo-Based Food and Nutrition Education
In Nauru, food and nutrition education is transversally integrated within the national curriculum through the subjects of general sciences, biology and physical education from grades 3 to 12. In previous years, it used to be part of home economics, but the subject is currently not being implemented due to a lack of resources. In pre-primary education, nutrition aspects are covered through the subject of health and physical education.
| Main targets |
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| Main educators | Teachers |
| Integration within the school curriculum | Transversally in the school curriculum:
Through extracurricular activities:
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The Ministry of Education develops the national curriculum. A curriculum survey was conducted in 2022 to identify areas that needed to be strengthened; however, it is still undecided if the curriculum will be reviewed now or at a later stage. Food and nutrition education, if finally integrated, will need to be formally planned into the curriculum before implementation.
Food and nutrition contents are covered very generally, mainly focused on food safety and hand washing practices, foods that are supportive of or detrimental to health, the body’s processes, etc. The contents are usually taught through discussion using printed learning materials (posters and pictures), by teachers who are the main front-line educators for such topics.
Taiwan's International Cooperation and Development Fund conducted a technical mission in Nauru to help the community on nutrition, especially training as part of a Dietary Diversity Extension project (2020-2023). The Taiwan technical team supported schools by giving workshops to school caterers and teachers on how to prepare a balanced meal for students. They also helped with a school kitchen gardens project; however, due to ongoing problems with drought, the gardens are not being used any more as a learning opportunity in schools.
Relevant extracurricular activities in Nauru include cooking demonstrations through the annual World Food Day (16 October), Fruit and Water Day (school activity), World Environment Day and Culture Day, a clean-up competition of the school food environment through a health awareness programme, etc.
The health-promoting schools initiative, promoted World Health Organization is currently operating in all schools across the country and working specifically on developing a school food policy.
There is no specific evaluation mechanism for food and nutrition content within these subjects in Nauru.
Relevant links
Publications
Improving Food and Nutrition Knowledge to enhance the diets of Nauru's population
The publication summarizes the results of a TCP mission to Nauru on improving food and nutrition knowledge to help effect a change in the dietary intake of the people of Nauru. Lessons from the project are used to show how this example may he helpful for improving nutrition and stemming the tide of non-communicable diseases in Pacific Island SIDS.