December 25, (THEWILL) – According to estimates by the World Bank, over 10.5 million Nigerian children were out of school by 2016.
This literally means that one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria.
This figure, though scary, is even scarier and more worrisome when the present estimate is put in context.
A survey conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicates that the population of out-of-school children in Nigeria has risen from 10.5 million to 13.2 million, the highest in the world.
As part of moves by many societies to address this and improve school enrollment at the basic level, school feeding programmes were introduced.
School feeding programmes have been defined by the World Bank as “targeted social safety nets that provide both educational and health benefits to the most vulnerable children, thereby increasing enrollment rates, reducing absenteeism, and improving food security at the household level.”
The major objectives of the programmes are to increase enrollment rates and improve the nutritional and health status of school children.
Others are to stimulate local agricultural production and boost the income of farmers, provide empowerment opportunities for women in order to improve family and local economy.
In Nigeria, the school feeding programme was first piloted by the Federal Government in 2004 during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The programme was implemented in 12 selected states from the six geo-political zones.
The programme, though not functioning as expected, was revived by the present administration in 2016 with the name National Home Grown School Feeding Programme and now implemented by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management.
Over 300 million meals have been served to more than 7.5 million pupils in 46,000 Public Primary Schools in 22 states.
The programme, though noble, has not been without challenges in its implementation particularly in some states.
In Cross River, primary and secondary school pupils have called on President Muhammadu Buhari to improve on the level of implementation of the programme.
This concern was expressed when the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Sadiya Umar Farouq, sent officials of the School Feeding Programme (SFP) to some schools.
Francis Patrick and Grace Nyong, both of them six-year-old primary 3 pupils of Preparatory International School Calabar and Emem Effiom of Holy Trinity Schools, Calabar commended the feeding programme, but they said the quality and hygienic regularity should be improved.
“We thank President Buhari for the jollof rice, but we want more. They don’t come every day or every week. The food is very small. The food makes us happy when we are on break. Some of my friends and classmates don’t come with biscuits so the food helps us. We need the food daily,” he said.
However, food vendors contracted to supply cooked foods to the school children in Cross River State lamented that the sums of money allocated to them to buy, cook and distribute foods to a number of schools in the state are very small.
They maintained that due to high costs of food items in the market, the money can no longer purchase enough and quality food items for the numbers of schools and children allocated to them.
Also speaking, the deputy head teacher of Preparatory International School, Lady Esther Afia said several times, the vendors would come with very small quantities of food to the little children.
She added that the quantity and quality did not assuage the levels of hunger of the children, who came with the hope of getting such foods on the given day and time.
She called for increased funding, so that the vendors can be able to buy larger quantities of food items and prepare quality and hygienic foods for the susceptible children.
She said, “There are more than 700 students in my school that benefit from the school feeding programme. I would say that the food help the students somehow.
“I must stress that the quantities have drastically reduced in recent times. This is due to the high costs of food items in the markets. Government should please increase the funding to help the vendors improve the quality and quantity of the foods.”
One of the vendors, Mrs Galadima Saida, said she handles over 30 class three pupils aged between 6 and 9 in the same school.
She said, “I started to supply food in May 2017 when the Government initiative started in the state, and it has been very interesting for me, especially because the children have fallen in love with me.
“However the N70 per child is no longer sufficient, going by the prevailing hyper-inflation in the country. There is a dire need for the amount given to us to be increased to tally with the economic situation.
“In Cross River State, the money allocated to us does not come regularly. Starting from 2020, we received payments once or twice per term, whereas it is supposed to be monthly so as to feed the children daily. So how can we cope?”
The Programme manager of the SFP in the state, Gabriel Okulaja, in his reaction said the government is still passionate about the programme and is still generating data so as to improve its implementation.
Okulaja said, “The programme is going through transitions. We are embarking on enumeration of data, schools, vendors to enable us to improve funding.
“The federal government is still passionate about it. Currently, we have 286,511 children across the state participating. We are yet to cover all schools. More will be captured in the next phase of the programme.
“There are 433 cooks, 18 bakeries, 18 farms involved and over 5000 crates of eggs are used per feeding. I think this is good somehow for the local economy even though we couldn’t handle it during the COVID-19 periods in 2020.”
Also speaking, Mrs Elizabeth Odu, an official from the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs Abuja, said they are monitoring the quality and quantity of foods supplied to the children.
“We are targeting to feed nine million children across schools in the country. Presently, we are capturing data and schools with a view to bettering the programme next year,” said.
About the Author
THEWILL Correspondent, Aniekan Bassey has over six years experience that spans across several fields in print journalism including development communication, sexual reproductive and health rights issues, crime, climate change, social justice, business and human interest stories.
