A re-elected Liberal government will invest $6.5 million over the coming years to expand free breakfast programs to every public school across the state.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff announced the funding partnership with charity Variety Tasmania on Tuesday, describing it as crucial for easing family budgets and boosting students’ learning.
“When our kids have a full tummy, they’re able to learn,” Rockliff said.
“This is funded by the bilateral agreement between the state government and the federal government … to ensure there is equity in education, to ensure that every single child that attends our public schools does so within an equitable environment.”
The promised program will eventually serve more than 50,000 students every day when fully rolled out, building on Variety’s existing breakfast clubs, which currently run in 40 schools across Tasmania.
It will follow the “Variety model”, which uses a ‘click and deliver’ platform to keep administration light for school staff and volunteers.
Variety CEO Mohammad Aldergham said the expansion was a major milestone for the program, which started as a pilot in five schools in 2022.
“Today’s announcement means we will eventually be able to scale up the breakfast club to enable every single student in every single public school on every single school day to have a breakfast,” he said.
The charity’s data shows promising results from existing programs, with participating schools seeing a 22% drop in antisocial behaviour during morning lessons and a 52% jump in attendance rates.
“A student that turns up to school without breakfast loses about two hours of their learning day,” Aldegaard said.
“If you add that two hours per day across 200 school days, we’re looking at a full term of lost learning opportunities.”
The breakfast clubs usually run for 30 to 45 minutes before school starts, with times varying between schools depending on their capacity and resources.
The program has been especially valuable for regional students who face long bus trips to school, with some travelling up to 90 minutes each way.
Aldergham said 81% of families currently using the breakfast clubs pointed to cost-of-living pressures as a key reason for taking part.
“Regardless of whether they have breakfast at home or not, the idea there is to encourage students to turn up to school with full tummies and enable them to concentrate, focus and be able to learn and thrive,” he said.
The rollout will be gradual, with the program expected to reach an annual cost of $2.5 million once it’s in place across all public schools.
