KiTank question 2/3:
READING PASSAGE 3
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions below.
A. Msekeni is in one of the poorer parts of Malawi, a landlocked southem African country of exceptional beauty and great poverty. No war lays waste Malawi, nor is the land unusually crowded or infertile, but Malawians still have trouble finding enough to eat. Half of the children under five are underfed to the point of stunting. Hunger blights most aspects of Malawian life, so the country is as good a place as any to investigate how nutrition affects development, and vice versa.
B. The headmaster at Msekeni, Bemard Kumanda, has strong views on the subject. He thinks food is a priceless teaching aid. Since 1999, his pupils have received free school lunches. Donors such as the World Food Programme [WFP] provide the food: those sacks of grain [mostly mixed maize and soybean flour, enriched with vitamin A] in that converted classroom. Local volunteers do the cooking - tuming the dry ingredients into a bland but nutritious slop, and spooning it out onto plastic plates. 'The children line up in large crowds, cheerfully singing a song called "We are getting porridge".
C. When the schools feeding programme was introduced, enrolment at Msekeni doubled. Some of the new pupils had switched from nearby schools that did not give out free porridge, but most were children whose families had previously kept them at home to work. These families were so poor that the long-term benefits of education seemed unattractive when set against the short-term gain of sending children out to gather firewood or help in the fields. One plate of porridge a day completely
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