In a bid to increase children enrolment in schools, the Federal Government said that it would commence the second phase of the school feeding program for pupils in primary 1-3 pupils next academic year in Nasarawa State.
According to the reports gathered by Eyes Of Lagos, The federal government school feeding program which has since commenced in 14 states, is already feeding about 2.9 million primary school children in the country.
Speaking at a 2-day stakeholders’ implementation workshop on the National Home Grown School Feeding Program, the Operation Manager of the National Social Investment Program (NSIP), a program under the office of the Vice President, Mr. Dotun Adebayo, said the workshop was aimed at building the capacity of the state government and other stakeholders to successfully kick start the program.
Mr. Adebayo posited that Nasarawa state was selected as one of the pilot states to empower women, reduce malnutrition in children and increase enrolment in schools to tackle illiteracy from the basis.
He said, the program was designed in such a way that middlemen would have no access to the funds, as each school child would take a meal of N70 per-day, whereas federal government would deal directly with the cooks (women) as well as producers of farm produce in order to reduce cost.
The NSIP operation manager urged the state government to key into the program, as the benefits accruing are enormous, saying that Nasarawa State was captured in the budgetary provision to feed school children in the state, as federal government has expended over N6 in the said 14 states.
He said, the implementation of the program in the said 14 states has lifted a lot of burden and difficulties on households in the face of recession.
Mr. Amos said, the implementation of the school feeding program would first commence with pupils from primary 1-3, before it would be extended to pupils from primary 4-6.
