Roman Travers: Hungry kids falling behind at school - maybe we need to stop blaming our curriculum

Although the school holidays are still in full swing, that doesn’t mean that the country’s children are getting the food they need at home.

New Zealand children are still going hungry at school and that means that they’re ending up years behind other children in key subjects. The data that shows this ongoing issue for us all and also ranks New Zealand poorly for food poverty.

The health researchers behind the just-published analysis argue the government needs to double the number of children served by its newly revamped lunches in schools scheme.

It’s no surprise that hungry students struggle to learn: food poverty has been cited as a big barrier in New Zealand’s scoring under the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment.

A comparison between that and two other global datasets has allowed a team of researchers to look at the link in greater depth.

After analysing food insecurity levels with subject-specific scores, the team revealed a stark trend.

Any degree of food insecurity was associated with much lower academic performance - a pattern that held across all subjects, age groups, and surveys.

Professor Boyd Swinburn from Auckland University is a co-author of the study I’m referring to, and he says he didn’t expect the effect size to be so large.

In all, it equated to a learning gap equivalent to hungry students trailing two to four years behind in subjects like maths and reading by age 15 – even after adjusting for socio-economic indicators.

Something else born from this study is that there’s also a gradient effect. The more severe the food insecurity, the greater the gap in scores compared to kids with no food insecurity.

The problem doesn’t just reflect hungry children finding it harder to concentrate in class, but other factors including parents keeping their kids home rather than face stigma at school.

It’s all very well blaming the state of the New Zealand curriculum, or the size of the classrooms confronting our teachers, but when you may well address some of the demonstrably poor outcomes shown in this study – by simply ensuring that our children are well fed and literally well catered for at school, what on earth are we waiting for?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Although the school holidays are in full swing. Still that
doesn't mean that the country's children are getting the food
they need at home. New Zealand children are still going
hungry at school, and that means they're going through and
ending up years behind other children in key subjects. The
data that shows this ongoing issue for us all also
ranks New Zealand poorly for food poverty. The health researchers

(00:20):
behind this just published analysis argue that government needs to
double the number of children served by its newly revamped
lunches in school scheme. It's no surprise that hungary students
struggle to learn. Food poverty has been cited as a
big barrier in New Zealand's scoring under the OECD's Program
for International Student Assessment. A comparison between that and two

(00:42):
other global data sets has allowed a team of researchers
to look at the link in greater depth. After analyzing
food and security levels after subject specific scores, the team
reveiled to start trend, any degree of food and security
was associated with much lower academic performance, a pattern that
held across all subjects, age groups, and surveys. Professor Boyd

(01:04):
Swinburne from Auckland University as a co author of the
study I'm referring to, and he says he didn't expect
the effect size to be so large. In all, it
equated to a learning gap equivalent to hungry students trailing
two to four years behind in subjects like maths and
reading by age fifteen, and even after adjusting for socioeconomic indicators.

(01:25):
Something else born to the study is that there's also
a grady in effect. The more severe the food and security,
the greater gap in scores compared to kids with no
food insecurity. The problem doesn't just affect hungry children finding
it harder to concentrate in class, but other factors, including
parents keeping their kids home rather than facing stigma at school.

(01:47):
It's all very well to blame the state of New
Zealand's curriculum or the size of classrooms confronting our teachers,
but when you may well address some of the demonstrably
poor outcomes shown in the study by simply ensuring that
our children are well fed and literally well catered for
at school, what on earth are we waiting for? For
more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to

(02:10):
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