Jamaica’s Education Act - A (Potential) Tool for Realisation of Children’s Rights to Adequate Food and Health

• Author: Shereika Mills
• Pages: 115-134

Jamaica’s Education Act - A (Potential) Tool

for Realisation of Children’s Rights

to Adequate Food and Health

Shereika Mills1

Abstract

This paper examines the Jamaican school food environment in light of children’s

rights to adequate food and health drawing on both international human rights

treaties as well as domestic law. It highlights the State’s obligations to safeguard

children’s interests relating to health and food within the school setting and in so

underlines some of the challenges posed by private sector involvement in Jamaican

schools, particularly in relation to the advertising and marketing of unhealthy food

and beverages within the school environment. The author ultimately argues for

legislative reform through the Education Act as one way of allowing for fuller

realisation of children’s rights to adequate food and health within Jamaican schools.

Key words

education; children rights; school food environments; noncommunicable

diseases; Jamaica

Introduction

The Education Act

2

was the rst piece of legislation that Jamaica passed following

its independence in 1962. The Education Act governs the statutory and operational

aspects of education, and the time of its passage speaks volumes about the perceived

importance of education for the Jamaican society. It also demonstrates the central

role that education is thought to play in national development, and in constructing

a solid post-colonial identity. Presently, the importance of education is reected not

only in the theoretical sense of what it means for Jamaicans culturally, but also in

the practical sense of having the physical school grounds often be at the centre of

community activities and programmes.3

1 Attorney-at-Law. Email: sheikamills@gmail.com

2 Education Act, 1965

3 The Jamaica Education Transformation Commission, The Reform of Education in Jamaica 2021

116

Jamaica’s Education Act - A (Potential) Tool for Realisation of Children’s Rights

to Adequate Food and Health

The Jamaica Education Transformation Commission (JETC)’s 2021 report

contained several recommendations which centre continued and transformed school-

community partnerships, and recognised the role of the community in improving

student wellbeing. Notably, this recent report further recognised the central role of

the school environment in Jamaica as a safe haven for students from hunger.4 The

school feeding programme was created in part to encourage attendance at school and

better health outcomes for children in lower socioeconomic areas,

5

demonstrating the

linkage between education, adequate food and health, which have historically gone

hand in hand, especially in eorts to reduce child malnutrition after independence.

6

Similarly, health has increasingly been recognised as an important development

aspect. One of the anticipated outcomes of the country’s national development

agenda, titled Vision 2030,7 is that Jamaica has a stable and healthy population. It

states that by 2030, the life expectancy of Jamaicans should be higher than 76 years

old and that this goal will be achieved by building the awareness and commitment

of our population to the maintenance of healthy lifestyles and environments. In

doing so, Vision 2030 seemingly reects a concern with noncommunicable diseases

(NCDs – e.g., cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases), which tend to be of long

duration and are a result of several factors, including behavioural ones such as

physical inactivity, alcohol consumption, tobacco use, and unhealthy diets.8

However, in stark contrast with Vision 2030, the reality is that one in three

Jamaicans has hypertension9, and one in eight has diabetes.10 As it relates to youth,

in 2017, more than 30,000 children and adolescents between ten and nineteen years

(The Jamaica Education Transformation Commission, 2021) <https://opm.gov.jm/wp-content/

uploads/ipbook/jetc-reform-of-education-in-jamaica-2021-abridged/PDF.pdf> accessed 8

November 2022

4 Ibid. p 30

5 Jennings, Z, ‘Impact of the provision of school lunch on attendance in remote rural Jamaican

schools’ (2016) 46 Int Jour Edu Dev <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/

S0738059315001121> accessed 10 December 2022.

6 Atlink, H, ‘Tackling Child Malnutrition in Jamaica, 1962-2020’ (2020) 7 Humanities Soc Sci

Communications https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-00536-5 accessed 10 December 2022.

7 Planning Institute of Jamaica, ‘Vision 2030’ (2009) <http://lslandr.com/vision2030/national-

goals-and-outcomes/> accessed 10 December 2022

8 World Health Organization, ‘Noncommunicable diseases’ https://www.who.int/news-room/

fact-sheets/detail/noncommunicable-diseases accessed 15 April 2024

9 Ministry of Health, ‘Jamaica Health and Lifestyle Survey III (2016-2017) Preliminary Key

Findings’, .gov.jm (2018) https://www.moh.gov.jm/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Jamaica-

Health-and-Lifestyle-Survey-III-2016-2017.pdf accessed 10 December 2022

10 Ibid