By Stella Sabi
The South African university student population has changed over the past 20 years to reflect wider society more closely than before. It’s no surprise therefore that more students need support than before. The homes they come from are also struggling.
But what is perhaps surprising is that students who are receiving government financial support are still vulnerable to hunger. They are also reluctant to use the extra support that’s available, and their health and studies suffer as a result.
Student vulnerability to hunger has emerged as an alarming problem at South African higher education institutions. The National Student Financial Aid Scheme covers school fees, accommodation and a stipend, but is leaving a big gap: food.
At the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where nearly half the students are from poor households, meal vouchers and food hampers have been offered since 2012.
Research by my colleagues and I reviewed whether this is making a difference. We found that more than half of the students in the study sometimes went hungry and that less than 10% of food-insecure students, or those from poor households, had taken advantage of the program. This is largely due to a lack of program awareness, and negative perceptions associated with food handouts.
Food insecurity impacts on students’ ability to focus, attend class and therefore academic outcomes. An urgent food security intervention is needed to stop this.
More students need to know about the program, and more needs to be done to keep students who are beneficiaries anonymous so that they don’t feel ashamed to access it. In addition to this, the government should offer financial support to campus food security interventions.
Food insecurity
For the study, we asked 500 university students to participate using a questionnaire that included questions such as “how many meals do you eat on a normal day?” and “in the last 30 days, did you eat smaller meals due to a lack of resources?”
We explored how vulnerable they were to food insecurity using the household food insecurity access scale. The experience of food insecurity causes certain reactions – such as feelings of uncertainty or anxiety – over food and responses – such as eating less food – which are put into a scale.
The study also examined what the students reported about their eating habits “in normal circumstances”.
We found that vulnerability to food insecurity was evident in over half (51.3%) of the students. These students sacrificed a meal due to a lack of resources.
About 10% of them were highly vulnerable to food insecurity. Because they couldn’t afford it, these students either only ate one meal during the day, or would starve throughout the day and eat only at night.
Food insecurity has a huge impact on health, well-being and academic performance. Nearly 65% of the students indicated that hunger affected their energy levels and ability to think. About 30% of them were unable to attend a class as a result.
Being food insecure was linked to students’ source of funding and lack of resources. More specifically, most food-insecure students were sponsored by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme and come from impoverished families.
