165 learners at the Nconcoma Primary School community hostel in the Kavango East Region do not have enough food to eat.
This has resulted in learners only having lunch and dinner, and no breakfast.
Nconcoma Primary School hostel, which caters for grades one up to seven, currently has soft porridge every day.
Learners rely more on monthly donations from the community and teachers who complement the school's crop field.
The community hostel is currently not subsidised by government.
The acting principal of Nconcoma Primary School is Marthin Karwapa.
"Number one is the infrastructure; there must be a proper one. There must be a floor in it and the ablution facilities for the learners where they can help themselves and proper bedding where they sleep and then at least a storage of the food. If the government gives the go-ahead, where will this be kept? Those are some of the criteria that the government has given us that we should meet before it can come in and subsidise the hostel."
The community hostel was established in 2017.
"The initiative came in with the objective to increase the enrolment of these learners from the marginalised, and also to promote inclusive education with the inclusion of the marginalised learners. One of the objectives also was to reduce the dropout of these learners, because we understood that when they usually go, majority of them – not all of them, majority of them – tend to drop out, and then we came up with this: at least the school is within their area, it will at least reduce their dropout."
The Director of Education for the Kavango East Region, Christine Shilima, said there is not much the government can do to improve the nutrition needs at the school.
This is due to the fact that Nconcoma Primary School hostel is a community hostel, meaning it has to fend for itself, Shilima said.
She added that the situation at the school is in no way meant to neglect the marginalised community learners.
Currently we are accommodating the marginalised in the inland, and we are again transporting them. We are accommodating them at Ndiyona combined school hostel. We did not neglect them so that perhaps they should not have access to education; it remains our duty.
Shilima, however, stated that the construction of the hostel could begin once it meets the ministry's requirements.