FG TO ENROLL MORE SCHOOLS IN ENUGU INTO SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAMME

Reporting : CHUKWUBUIKE MADU

Efforts are on-going to ensure that all public primary schools in Enugu State are incorporated into the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme. This is in line with the directive of President Mohammadu Buhari to enroll additional 5,000,000 pupils to the existing 9,196,823 pupils already benefiting from the programme. Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq, said this in a message to the ongoing Monitoring and Enumeration of Beneficiaries of the National Homegrown School Feeding Programme in Enugu.

The Minister, who was represented by the Team Lead for Enugu State Monitoring and Enumeration of the Programme, Miss Adanne Wadibia-Anyanwu, told journalists that the Federal Government spent nearly eight million Naira in daily feeding of one hundred and fourteen thousand, two hundred and sixty-one pupils in public primary schools within Enugu State.

Miss. Anyanwu also noted that the government had engaged one thousand, five hundred and thirty-two cooks that supplied the daily meals to the pupils in the state, explaining the monitoring and the enumeration were to ensure that proper things were done as well as to see how to increase enrolment of more pupils into the programme.

 “We are taking stock of how the programme is going, verifying the data that we have and making sure that everybody that we are providing for: the cooks, the pupils, we have value for the money we spend on them.

“The current enumeration and bio-data capturing is a building block towards the expansion of the programme to include more pupils and schools in the state.

“President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier announced his laudable intention of an additional 5 million pupils to be enrolled in the programme nationwide.

“The ministry also wants to know how the programme is being managed on daily basis, the resources available and if there are shortfalls before the expansion would be done in order to tighten loose ends.

“As we are in the field now, we are getting feedback from the programme, seeing where we can make changes, where we can improve,” she stated.

The team visited Igbariam Primary School Achara Layout, Enugu and Idaw River Primary School, Enugu South Local Government Area where youth corps members were enumerating the pupils from primary one to three. The Headmistress of Igbariam Primary School, Mrs. Salome Obi, expressed joy that the school feeding programme had increased enrolment of more pupils in her school.

“Many pupils from the private schools are coming here now. Our population is increasing steadily because of this food.

“You know there is hunger in this country but when theses pupils come to school, they will have something to eat. All these things encourage them to come and so we thank our dear president for this,” the Head teacher said.

Two pupils, Miss Flavour Anigbo and Miss Favour Nzube, said they were served different meals from Monday to Friday.

“I like the food because it is delicious and I want them to keep it up.

“Everyday in school at break time, they give us food: fried potato with source, some days beans and fruits, okpa and rice with chicken. I like it because it is delicious,” the pupils remarked.

One of the cooks, Mrs. Uzoamaka Ogbu, said though the programme had helped her and her colleagues to improve the welfare of their families and other dependents, the seventy naira they charge for each meal was no longer sustainable in line with the prevailing economic realities.

“Since I started this food vendor stuff, I have been able to feed my family with a little money I’m getting here.

“However, the challenge I have now is that foodstuffs are very costly in the market.

“The amount they are giving us is not enough to feed the children because per meal is #70 per child but we are Cooperative, we are merely managing ourselves” the cook lamented.

Seven hundred and ninety-nine public primary schools within the seven Local Government Areas of Enugu State are so far participating in the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme, since the commencement of the programme in the state on February 8, 2017.