Release
By Austine Elemue, S.A Media To FCT Minister of State
FCT Minister of State, Dr. Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu, has said that a total of 120,300 pupils across the six area councils in the territory will be benefitting from the FCT Home Grown School Feeding Programme of the government.
The minister who made the revelation during the official flag-off of the programme in Karu Model School also revealed that the pupils are drawn from the 626 public primary schools within the six area councils of the territory.
Aliyu observed that the programme was designed to improve the health and educational outcomes of public primary school pupils, stressing that the programme links local farmers to the education sector by facilitating their access to the school feeding market.
She assured that all stakeholders parents, teachers, traditional and community leaders who are the gatekeepers, and the vendors who will prepare the meals will be carried along in the full implementation of the programme, adding to ensure efficient service delivery, a feedback mechanism involving the head teachers, health teachers and the class teachers of each school has been put in place, as well as the process of training the head teachers, health teachers and class teachers in each school.
“The programme is targeting about 120,300 pupils that will be drawn from 626 public primary schools across the six Area Councils of the FCT. Henceforth, pupils will be fed once daily with meals containing the six required nutrients from primary one to three.
“I want to assure you that all stakeholders parents, teachers, traditional and community leaders who are the gatekeepers, and the vendors who will prepare the meals will be carried along in the full implementation of this programme,” Aliyu stressed.
The minister who specifically stated that the programme in FCT is for pupils in LEAs, however called on community leaders and all stakeholders in the FCT to assist the Federal Government in lifting the burdens off indigent parents who could not afford balanced diets for their wards.
Earlier in her remarks, the minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajia Sadiya Umar Farouk, noted that the Social Investment programmes of the Federal Government were designed to achieve the national objectives of reducing poverty and taking a 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by creating opportunity, increasing resilience, promoting equity and stimulating growth in the country.
Farouk also stated that the National Home Grown School Feeding programme is one of the four cardinal programmes of National Social Investment Programme, stressing that the programme main objective is to provide one nutritious, balanced meal each school day to pupils in classes 1 to 3 in public primary schools across the country.
According to her, “The programme is designed to increase enrolment rates by mopping up the huge numbers of out of school children in Nigeria while tackling school age malnutrition. As part of the value chain, the programme also empowers the cooks and provides a sustainable income for small holder farmers, thereby stimulating growth and productivity around the communities in the states”.