Abia Govt Feeds Primary 4 – 6 Pupils, Ikpeazu’s Aide Insists

Mr Chinenye Nwaogu, the Special Adviser on Social Investment & Intergovernmental Affairs to Abia State Governor, Dr. Okezie Victor Ikpeazu has said the state government under the home grown school feeding feeds primary 4 – 6 pupils in public primary schools in the state.

Mr. Nwaogu who is also the Abia State Focal Person on National Homegrown School Feeding Programme and National Secretary of Focal Persons spoke in Abuja on Monday during the opening ceremony of the 4th Annual Review of the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP),

The Governor’s aide while applauding the implementation of the programme disclosed that the Abia State Government which rolled out the school feeding programme ahead of Federal Government’s scheme, currently feeds pupils from primary 4 to primary 6, while Federal Government’s Homegrown School Feeding Programme focused on pupils from Primary 1 to 3.

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He said: “It’s one of the most successful programmes of the President Buhari’s administration that addresses challenges faced by pupils in primary schools who come from very poor and vulnerable households, who before now, many of them come to schools without food and it affects their participation in the learning activities.

“So this activity is for us to look at the programme in perspective, review the challenges the programme is facing; introduce new mechanisms to make the programme more effective, more impactful; enhance the efficiency of the programme and expand the programme to include more beneficiaries.”

While speaking on the mechanism, put in place for monitoring and evaluation of the homegrown school feeding programme vis-a-vis criticism trailing the identity of the beneficiaries of the scheme, Mr Nwaogu said: “Well for this programme, that may not apply for the homegrown school feeding programme because the pupils that are being fed are pupils in public primary schools, they are all over the country.

“The people that provide the meals come from communities where the schools are located, they must be known to the community members and the cooks receive the money directly from the Federal Government, through their bank accounts, so they are properly known.

“The recruitment process is so transparently done. Normally, it’s advertised in the State and all the key stakeholders, traditional rulers, community heads, women groups, those that work within the education value chain at the state level are all involved in the recruiting the cooks who provide these meals.

“You know the governor of Abia State had earlier launched this programme before the Federal Government expanded the programme to us. So in Abia, we are feeding from Primary 1 to 6. The Federal Government feeds from Primary 1 to 3, Abia is feeding from Primary 4 to 6 because of the understanding we have around this programme. We believe this programme has reverse enrolment from private school to public school.

“It has also expanded our enrolment, we started with a little below 300,000 pupils but now we are close to 600,000. Now children know that there’s a meal waiting for them when they arrive at schools. It has also improved learning outcomes, improve nutritional indices. Of course, it also impacted positively on those who deal in agricultural products because it’s called homegrown school feeding, all of the things in the menu are sourced locally from the State.

“Rice growers, beans growers, yam growers, egg producers, potato producers in Abia are all part of the supply chain of this programme; so we no longer have issues of their products rotting away on the shelves, they are all aggregated and funnelled into this programme ad so it’s a win-win for everyone,” Mr Nwaogu told Tribune.