That School Feeding Debate

Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo said last week
that government school feeding
programme would be enjoyed by 20 million children in Nigeria. Incidentally, the planned launch has attracted responses that should not be discountenanced.
According to Osinbajo, the one-meal-a-day for primary school children across Nigeria will help the local economies, improve school enrollments, boost the nutrition and health of children, create employment and market for local agricultural produces among others.
But how the programme will be funded presented the first problem. The Vice President said the N500 billion approved in the 2016 budget for social investment will be used to fund the programme. Incidentally, it is the same money budgeted to pay un-employed graduates (for how long) and create 1.14 million jobs.
While these issues need to be clarified, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State says the Federal Government may have provided an excuse for the school feeding programme to fail when it factored in a 40 percent State counterpart funding. He stated categorically that his State has no money for the programme, even as the matter has not been discussed with the States.
Confusing as it may sound, Governor Fayose also noted that the school feeding programme was a promise of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and should be wholly funded by the Federal Government which benefitted from the votes given on that account. On the other hand, he suggests that APC States could go ahead with it without imposing it on others.
Added to the several other responses, especially against the programme, government should find a way of confirming if Nigerians truly want that programme. Besides, should all the States be compelled to participate in the programme even when Nigeria is not under a command system.
The point must be made that while the programme may be suitable for some States, especially the rural setting; cultures that do not accord with the ‘Almajiri’ system cannot support it. In fact, many States that started it dropped the idea long ago without any external reason to do so.
The Tide shares the concern of government over dwindling school enrollment and rising school drop-outs in some States and the average health profile of the Nigerian child, but whether the one-meal-a-day for a handful of children is the panacea remains a puzzle. If government is quick to feed the children, what happens to their mothers who also have their peculiar challenges?
Apart from the tendency to always react to issues instead of avoiding them and dealing with symptoms instead of causes, governments in Nigeria have tended to confuse issues. The last time we checked, Nigeria still runs a capitalist economy and not socialist, where government at the centre decides how to feed children and concerns itself with primary education that belongs to the Local Governments.
On the other hand, the school feeding programme raises another problem; it is on record, that private schools take care of more children in Nigeria than the public schools. How then can it be explained to the children in private schools that the government discriminates against them.
Also worrisome is the sustainability of the programme especially given the funding arrangement which is already a challenge. Like the Universal Primary Education (UPE) scheme and the Universal Basic Education (UBE) scheme that failed to address any issue, why should government want to throw money into the drains again?
Over the centuries, different methods have been employed to encourage literacy; one may also be the school feeding system. But the adoption of scholarship had tended to take care of the bright and the indigent without making parents look inadequate and pitiable. Scholarships also promote competition and brings pride to the parents, who the feeding plan stand to defame.
On the whole, the safety of the children should be of paramount concern. It is common knowledge that parents in this part of the world advise their children against picking valuables on the ground as they walk by or accept gifts from strangers or put anything in the mouth that was not approved by their parents. There are very cogent reasons for these and the school feeding programme stand in contrast.
Finally, we think that there are roles carved out for parents and duties outlined for government, and none says that government should put food in the mouth of our children. The least government can do is to give free education, offer scholarships and awards and make the economy serve the needs of the family.