Prof Osinbajo launches national school feeding scheme aimed at catering for 20m pupils

ACTING president Professor Yemi Osinbajo has announced that the federal government intends to launch a comprehensive food scheme for school pupils known as the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme in a bid to spur education.

 

According to the findings of a 2013 report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), Nigeria has the highest number of children out of school in the world. It revealed that a total of 10.5m Nigerian children are not in school at the moment, accounting for about 47% of the global total.

 

As part of a plan to address this malady, the federal the government has launched the school feeding programme with the aim of impacting the lives of 20m children nationwide. According to Professor Osinbajo, the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme is the first of its kind and one of the five social investment schemes of the presidency.

 

He also said that the constitutional and philosophical underpinnings for the N500bn social investment programmes of the Buhari presidency is a mandate without which the inalienable right to life guaranteed Nigerians by the constitution is rendered meaningless. Professor Osinbajo stated this yesterday at the launch of the strategic implementation plan of the feeding programme.

 

It was attended by governors, state commissioners, representatives of international donors and partners and civil society groups at the State House Banquet Hall. According to Professor Osinbajo, the strategic plan sets out the partnership arrangement on how federal, state and local governments are to synergise towards achieving the primary objectives of the school feeding programme.

 

Professor Osinbajo added: It is called ‘Home Grown School Feeding for the reason that it must be owned by the people for whom it has been designed. This scheme would indeed bring real change to the lives of over 20m children nationwide and would equally create the multiplier effect on the local economies in communities where these schools are located by boosting agriculture, entrepreneurship and employment.”

 

Speaking on the theme Stimulating Socio-Economic Growth Through the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, Professor Osinbajo said the federal government’s variant of the programme is not just a social welfare scheme which gives hand-outs to the poor but “a direct economic benefit to the target groups and the economy as a whole. Stating four major benefits of the programme, he said it would improve school enrolment and completion, cut current dropout rate estimated at 30% and at the same time reduce child labour and improve nutrition and health.