By Iliya Kure
Nigeria has commenced counting primary one to three pupils, expected to benefit from its home-grown school feeding programme in Kano State.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Faruq, who flagged off the enumeration exercise in Kano said, the exercise became imperative to ascertain number of pupils benefiting under the programme, as well as ensure proper planning of the programme.
Umar-Faruq represented by her Technical Assistant and State Team Lead, Abubakar Hashimu warned parents and other relevant stakeholders to avail and ensure their pupils were captured during the exercise to avoid risk of not benefiting from the programme.
According to her, “we embarked on this exercise because we want to really ascertain the actual number of students that the Federal Government is feeding across the 36 states and the FCT.
“We only have the names of the pupils we are feeding, but we don’t have their pictures and biometrics. So, with this exercise, we want to have their details. These will help the ministry to plan well ahead of every year, as well as to ascertain the impact of the programme.
“We have figures from the states and another from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which we have a little bit …, they have not reconciled the figures. So we involved members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC and National Orientation Agency, NOA because they have carried out similar enumeration exercises in the past and performed creditably well. So we want to have an independent data that is accurate and which is not corrupt.
“We urged the parents, executive secretaries and others to ensure their pupils are captured during the ongoing enumeration exercise to avoid risk of not benefiting from the school feeding programme,” Umar-Faruq stated.
Earlier, the Kano State Focal Person, Baba Aminu Zubairu said the state has about 1.2 million children benefiting under the school feeding programme by the Federal government.
Zubairu said the state needs increase in enrolment of pupils into the school feeding programme, particularly that the state govt policy on free education has increased the number of enrolment into schools in the state.
In his welcome address, the State Programme Manager, Abdullahi Yau commended Federal Government for the school feeding programme, which he said will boost the nutritious and health status of the pupils.
Yau also applauded the Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje’s administration for extending the school feeding programme to pupils in Primary four (4) to six (6) which he said other states have since followed suit.