•Personnel from the Ministry of Health should look into the healthy properties of sample and those of its proposed substitutes.

There have been a lot of interventions in the Ministry of General Education and other related ministries, centered on improving the education system in Zambia.
Most of the interventions are in the right direction.
However, it is imperative that even as the relevant ministries design such programmes, they also do not pay a blind eye to situations that may prove to be detours to the same.
It is in the same vein that I strongly solicit for the abolishment of the perpetual provision of maize grits (commonly known as samp) as breakfast in most, if not all Government boarding schools.
Out of my love for children, I took a survey in a number of public boarding schools across the country where I discovered that although the geographical location of these schools vary, they all have one thing in common – their diet – specifically their breakfast.
It is a well known fact that ‘samp’ in the time past was a delicacy in most Zambian homes. However, because of changing times and standards, it is a rare kind of breakfast even in the poorest of homes today.
We enjoyed it regardless of the long process of preparing it.
I remember very well from the home I grew up, pounding maize grains to prepare samp, was one of the activities of the weekend for girls.
We never used to take the maize to the hammer mill. We did it ourselves.
If my memory serves me right, we never used any other maize grains but what we called local maize.
This was the maize that was grown without artificial fertilizers.
It was believed that this type of maize made very nice and tasty samp because the grains were harder and bigger than hybrid maize.
There were various ways of preparing it.
Sometimes we enjoyed it when mixed with a paste made from well roasted groundnuts and at other times, the little amount of cooking oil and salt that was added to it while cooking would suffice.
The Namwanga’s from Muchinga Province loved it when it was mixed with beans and cooked together.
However, as stated earlier, because of changing times, samp is a rare kind of breakfast even in the country’s poorest homes.
Why?
My findings from mothers in the lower class were that, samp takes time to cook, thereby consuming a lot of charcoal and that family members, especially children, only enjoy it if it is prepared once in a while and not perpetually.
They say people prefer a simple cup of tea with two buns to having a plate of samp.
Besides, they argue that today’s samp is different from the one prepared in olden days because local maize is not always available, like in the past, while hybrid maize does not make good samp.
The working mums of the middle class, bluntly pointed out that, “samp is old fashioned and not nutritious.
They said during the preparation of maize grits, the most important nutrients from corn are
removed which makes it very low in nutritional value and ultimately renders it devoid of calories.
Some of them appeared to have been sincere by stating that “the time we were enjoying samp, there were no cornflakes and jungle oats in the shops and bakeries were not as many as we have them now”.
My research on the nutritional value of maize and which part of it is more nutritious discovered the consistencies with the views of the middle class.
I discovered that maize is healthier when eaten whole because more nutrients are in the germ and the kernel which are removed in the processed and refined maize grits.
The germ is rich in mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids, particularly linoleic acid.
The kernel, which is the outer part of the maize grain, is also rich in protein.
The most abundant protein in the kernel is known as zein.
It contains all the essential amino acids.
This gives corn protein a biological value of 60 per cent where milk has 85 per cent and eggs 94 per cent. (Pamplona-Roger 2003: pg 225).
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially for school going children because it provides the brain with one of its two basic needs, which is glucose.
However, the best glucose that the brain needs is one rich in vegetable fibre, which is not present in refined maize grits.
A study by the University of Northumbria (New Castle, United Kingdom) apparently proved that a breakfast, including foods rich in vegetable fiber, significantly improves attention and memory in school going children.
A low glycaemic index breakfast preferentially prevents children’s cognitive performance from declining throughout the morning. (Pamplona-Roger 2010:pg42)
If the above findings are accurate, then the current breakfast in most public boarding schools possesses as a potential disaster because sample contains refined sugars which are high in glycaemic index.
This affects the pupils negatively where cognitive performance, attention and memory are concerned.
With cognitive performance, a pupil is able to process, store and use the information they receive as the teacher is teaching.
Plotnik and Kouyoumdjian (2008:pg 7) puts it this way; “The cognitive approach focuses on how we process, store and use information and how this information influences what we attend to, perceive, learn, remember, believe and feel.”
Attention is also very important in the learning process of a pupil.
Without proper attention, the information being received during the learning process will only end up in the sensory memory and will not be processed to the short term memory which further takes it to the long term memory for permanent storage.
All this may seem to be irrelevant to the bone of contention, however, Zambia needs human capital, and for this human capital to be in place, proper learning must take place.
And for proper learning to take place, pupils and teachers must play their part.
And for pupils to fully play their part, their brains must be alert and ready to receive, store and retain information.
This is nearly impossible with sample as breakfast year in and year out.
I believe Government is investing immensely in the Ministry of General Education because a well educated citizenry is key to national development.
Currently, the Ministry of General Education has formulated a two-path way curriculum.
Zambia will have well socialized citizens who will contribute to national development even when they drop out of school at grade nine.
This is because they will have learnt skills that will be used in their communities to make a difference.
Zambia will have a crop of youths who have not just been to school but those who have really been educated.
The fact that samp takes long to prepare and consumes a lot of charcoal, the worry should be about the energy used to prepare it.
This samp has existed as breakfast in public boarding schools for close to five decades (if not more).
How many trees have gone down to prepare the needed fuel?
And if they use electric pots, how much power do they consume per day?
How about the issues of deforestation?
Won’t we be able to save some trees if samp is abolished?
More than two birds will be killed with one stone if this meal is abolished in schools.
Firstly, the performance of pupils in boarding schools will improve drastically, because their attention, memory and cognitive performance will improve.
This will in turn contribute to the much needed human capital in our country.
The number of well education youths in our country will increase.
And if this happens, we will be increasing our chances of moving away from being considered a
third world country.
Secondly, abolishing samp will reduce the rate of deforestation.
There are other locally grown foods that take less time and fuel to prepare.
Foods like Chingovwa, soya porridge (which is even more nutritious), cooked fresh cassava, sorghum (which is very rich in fibre), ifipushi, imyungu, intoyo and many other locally grown foods.
And when the pupils in these schools appreciate locally grown foods, they will maintain them in their own homes as well.
Furthermore, uplifting the value of all the foods listed as substitutes above will also be preserving our culture in some way.
The disappearing of our indigenous foods contributes to the disappearing of our culture because a people’s culture includes the foods they eat and how they prepare it too.
This is why we have Chipwatanga (pumpkin in peanut sauce) in Eastern Province and not in other provinces where pumpkins are available but groundnuts are not as available.
The delicious recipes involving our indigenous foods are only in the heads of our grandmothers who are soon passing on.
Those with degrees and masters in food and nutrition should not only brag of knowing how to
prepare foreign cuisines but should also glory in preserving our local recipes like chipwatanga from Eastern Province, Kwela from Northwestern , Iposo from Central, chikanda from Northern Province and many more.
The small-scale farmers who were growing these indigenous foods are no longer growing them on the same scale because they have no market.
Let us bring back some of these foods and provide market for the farmers growing them by introducing them in public boarding schools to replace sample.
This we will be empowering the villages that are around the areas where these schools are located.
It is possible for pupils in public boarding schools to be having a different breakfast per term, according to the availability of local foods in that particular term.
For example, they can be having fresh, nicely chopped boiled maize with nicely chopped mango and guava fruits (and any other available foods in rainy season) in the first term.
In the Second term fresh groundnuts, intoyo, and chingovwa and other available foods around in winter can also be served.
In the third term pupils can enjoy whole grain foods like rice, sorghum, millet or soya porridge even maize meal porridge with groundnuts for breakfast.
There is need for the constitution of a body comprising personnel from the Ministry of Education and nutritionists to provide more information on the diet status in public boarding schools in Zambia.
The nutritionists should look into the above tabulated reasons for the immediate abolishment of sample and the possibility including other locally grown foods, personnel from the ministry of agriculture to look into the presence of proposed substitute foods.
Lastly, but not the least, personnel from the Ministry of Health should look into the healthy properties of sample and those of its proposed substitutes.
The author is a second year student teacher at Mulungushi University in Kabwe.