Cue Into Homegrown School Feeding, FG Urges States

The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development has urged state governments to cue into the homegrown school feeding programme of the Federal Government.
The Team Leader for National Homegrown School Feeding Programme, Mr Charles Ukoh, gave the advice, during the enumeration of primary school pupils at the State Primary School 1, Borokiri in Port Harcourt, last Wednesday.
Ukoh, who represented the Ministry for Humanitarian Affairs, encouraged them to notify the team when their schools are in session so that Federal Government can release the funds for the pupils’ feeding.
He stated that the essence of the programme was to give the school children good nutritional food at the affirmative age to develop their brains, and also help them to be interested in education.
Ukoh, who is also a director in the ministry, said that the team’s mission in the state was to get the total number of pupils currently in the database of the national home groom school feeding programme.
“Currently, we have about 124,000 pupils in Rivers State, all in 963 schools, and also, 1,148 vendors who cook for the school feeding programme.
“The only challenge we will have is when we don’t get the thorough numbers of pupils from the creeks of Asari-Toru and Akuku-Toru.
“The Federal Government provides the funding and state government employs cook and manage the fund,” he said.
Furthermore, the Rivers State Director, National Orientation Agency (NOA), Mr Young Ayo-Tamuno, stated that the problem of out-of-school children in the state was a serious concern, adding that the Federal Government was trying to curb it through the feeding scheme by removing the children from streets.
Ayo-Tamuno said that one of the objectives of the programme was to increase school enrollment.
“What we are doing today is trying to get appropriate data. Those that are benefiting were pupils from one to three. They are about 124,000; and this is not good enough for us,” he said.
He urged the media to do investigation on the school feeding programme to know how far government has gone in the school feeding of the pupils in the country.
The Head Teacher of State Primary School 1, Borokiri, Mrs Oronneohiarebu Lilian, said that the school feeding scheme was an excellent programme because students who stopped school have enrolled back since the introduction of the scheme.
Lilian confirmed that the school feeding vendors were feeding the pupils regularly, and called on the Federal Government to increase the number of vendors.

By: Akujobi Amadi