Free school feeding: FG to enroll additional 5 million pupils

05 Sep Free school feeding: FG to enroll additional 5 million pupils

Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Faruq has said that President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the enrollment of an additional five million pupils into the free school feeding programme, otherwise referred to as the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP).

The, disclosed this in Maiduguri during her series of official engagements on Saturday in Borno State.

She spoke at  Dipcharima Primary School in old GRA Maiduguri where she handed over feeding utensils for pupils, said the enrollment figure in the primary schools across the country has gone  up to over nine million pupils, apart from the additional five million.

Hajiya Sadiya also commissioned Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) centre constructed by her ministry at Federal Government College, Maiduguri.

The minister noted that the NHGSFP has added impact across the value chain, as over 100,000 cooks are being engaged in the programme. “As we may all know, the NHGSFP is one of the four key interventions of the Federal Government under the National Social Investment Programme, which seeks to boost school enrollment, nutrition and local economic activities across thousands of communities in our nation.

“The benefits of this programme and its impact on the lives and livelihood of individuals, groups and communicates is clear, evident and undeniable. While addressing cross cutting issues of Hunger, Malnutrition and Poverty, we have thus far recorded over 9 million pupils on the programme being fed by over 100,000 Cooks. Employment is being created within the school feeding ecosystem in sectors of transportation,” the minister announced.