January 15, 2014

Dear Sir,

It has been recently discovered that the school children in BARMOODA are sorely undernourished, even to the point of being labelling as suffering from malnutrition. And so the Great Educators have recommended that all the meals served to the schools should be out-sourced.

They tried Harvard Whoppers, switched to Cambridge Fish and Chips, and even Oxford Pot Pies, but to no avail. The children still appeared anaemic.

And then, one day, one of the Educators who was considering increasing the wages of all the personnel, consulted with a skilled chef from, of all places, the Pickled Onion. The Dane chef, for he was from Denmark, after much consultation with his equally qualified assistants, offered the following insight.

The menu was not the problem. It was the delivery system.

What the great chef discovered on visiting the schools was that many of the meals were not delivered to the schools on time, store rooms were stacked high with uneaten meals, and those which were finally delivered were distributed erratically, inefficiently, and often cold and stale.

His conclusion was therefore that:

(1) Paying the delivery personnel more money would not improve the malnutrition.

(2) It mattered not whether it was Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford or York who prepared the meal, unless it was delivered promptly, attractively and efficiently, it would remain uneaten.

And so, he prepared a simple basic meal, had it delivered by selected personnel, and the health of the children improved markedly.

The moral: Improve the people delivering the product and you improve the system.

The system suggested by the great chef:

(1) Develop a team of officers to go out to the schools and observe the delivery of the curriculum.

(2) Observe the classes and the operation of the school.

(3) Assist delivery personnel who may be having problems as far as possible.

(4) Offer government scholarships only to students attending approved institutions.

(5) Hire only teachers from approved institutions

These small steps may have a positive effect on the health of the school population.

Gatha’s Son