FG urges Rivers govt to key into school feeding programme

The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, on Wednesday, urged the Rivers state government to cue into the Federal Government’s home groom school feeding programme.

Mr Charles Ukoh, Team Leader, National Home Groom School Feeding Programme, gave the advise during the enumeration of primary school pupils at the State Primary School one, Borokiri, in Port Harcourt.He said the enumeration was to enable the ministry collate the actual number of pupils, cooks and challenges, as well as gaps and issues to be resolved, before upgrading the number of pupils and schools in the state.Ukoh, who is also a Director in the humanitarian affairs ministry, advised the heads of schools to notify the team when their schools were in session, so that the Federal Government can release the funds for the pupils’ feeding.

He stated that the objective of the programme was to provide the school children good nutritional food at the affirmative age, to develop their brains and also stimulate their interest in education.Ukoh said that the team’s mission in the state was to get the total number of pupils that were currently on the data roll of the feeding programme.“Currently, we have about 124,000 pupils in Rivers state all in 963 schools and also 1148 vendors, who cook for the school feeding programme.“The Federal  Government provides the funding and the state government employs the cooks and manages the funds.“The only challenge we will have is when we don’t get the thorough number of pupils from the creeks of Asari Toru and Akuku-Toru.Mr Young Ayo-Tamuno, the State Director, National Orientation Agency (NOA), stated that the problem of out of school children in the state was a serious concern, making the federal government to want to curb it through the feeding scheme by removing the children off the streets.Ayo-Tamuno, noted that one of the objectives of the programme was also to increase school enrollment.

“What we are doing today is trying to get appropriate data, those that are benefiting were pupils from primary one to three, they are about 124,000 and this is not good enough for us,” he said.He urged the media to investigate the school feeding programme, to establish how far government had gone with the school feeding across the country.

Mrs Oronneohiarebu Lilian, the Head Teacher of State Primary School one Borokiri, described the school feeding scheme as an excellent programme, because pupils who stopped school had re-enrolled back to school, since the introduction of the scheme.Lilian confirmed that the school feeding vendors were regular in feeding the pupils, but called on the Federal Government to increase the number of vendors. (NAN)