FG begins enrollment of 339,642 pupils in school feeding programme in Kebbi
Federal Government has begun biometric data capture of 339,642 pupils to scale up implementation of the National Home-Grown School Feeding programme (NHGSFP) in Kebbi State.
Malam Aminu Attahiru Zagga, a Principal Administrative Officer, Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, stated this at the flag- off of the enumeration exercise in Birnin Kebbi on Tuesday.
He said,” The aim of the exercise is to ensure that every single child in the country had access to education by providing at least one -squired meal a day in order to motivate parents to enrol their children.
“We are here to officially flag- off NHGSFP enumeration exercise and capture actual data of pupils bio- metrically, receiving feeding from the government and cooks which commenced on the 2nd of Aug., 2021 in the state.
“It is important to note that the implementation of NHGSFP began in 2016 by President Muhammad Buhari’s Administration with the aim to increase enrolment rates of children from class one to three in public primary schools in the state,” he said.
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Zagga also explained that the programme would improve the nutritional and health status of the children, stimulate local agricultural production and boost the income of farmers by creating a viable and smallholder markets.
“The programme will also provide empowerment and increase living standard and the local economy.
“The enumeration exercise was aimed at verifying and updating the existing number of beneficiaries of NHGSFP for better effectiveness, transparency and accountability.
“Currently we have nine million students enrolled and we are expected to increase the enrolment to 10 million pupils nationwide as directed by Mr. President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The exercise was specifically targeted to reach out to vulnerable Nigerians, widows , poor people and encourage their parents to enrol their children in schools,” he said.
The officer called on parents of un-enrolled children to allow them in order to enable them benefit from the programme.
Also speaking, Mr. Joseph Yaro Machika, the Director, National Orientation Agency (NOA) in the state, said the Agency was saddled with responsibility for the distribution of the registration forms to public schools.
He said that personnel of the Agency with support of local councils’ officials were distributing the forms in some areas with security challenges.
He said that the personnel would also handle the biometric registration alongside Corps members of NYSC engaged for the exercise.
“We will not leave any school un- captured in all the 21 local government areas of the state.
“The Corps members will handle the registration exercise of 13 local government areas while personnel of the Agency would conduct the exercise in the remaining eight local government areas that have security challenge issues,” he said.
A Headmaster at Wazuri Ummaru Nizzamiya Model Primary School, Malam Bello Abubakar, said over 637 pupils had been captured in the ongoing enumeration exercise.
Abubakar said that no fewer than eight food vendors were engaged to supply meal to the pupils in the school under the programme.
One of the parents of the pupils, Muhammad Bala, commended the programme,saying it encouraged enrollment and retention of pupils in schools.
A cook of the programme, Hajiya Zainab Bello Saraki, lauded the programme, while lamenting that the vendors were facing challenges of inflation ,adding that it was difficult to feed a child with the earlier contractual agreement amount of money.
“I cook for 61 students and I also want to appeal for an upward review of fund because prices of food commodities have gone up, and we cooks wont make any gain if we continue like this,” Saraki said.
