‘Free nutritious meals increase pupils number in schools’

Free nutritious meals under the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme, have pulled more pupils to public schools, Programme Manager, Abimbola Adesanmi has said.

She said at a symposium in honour of African Day of School Feeding in Abuja that more pupils were sent to public schools because of free nutritious meals given to them in primary 1-3 once in a day and that many parents have withdrawn their children from private to public schools.

The programme, she said, provided opportunities to assist vulnerable families feed their children while providing an incentive to send them to school.

She said the rise in the number of pupils in schools had put pressure on authorities to build additional classrooms and toilets.

Adesanmi said pupils were fed with foods locally produced in their respective areas and that each state had prepared its own food menu.

Pupils received meals in 46,004 schools with a total of 75,333 cooks, she revealed. Class and school head teachers provided reports to authorities on all meals served and that deworming exercises were conducted in schools, according to her.

Two more states would join the programme including Borno.

The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, represented by Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, said 7,487,441 kids received free meals in 22 states and that the programme had created a value chain that helped fight poverty.

Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, Mrs Mariam Uwais, said the programme was one of the social investment efforts of the government that improved the lives of people in “the most direct way possible.”

She said there were 7.9 million direct beneficiaries of social investments with programmes in all the states and the FCT.