FG Reviews National School Feeding Programme Meal to N100 Per Plate

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja

The federal government has upwardly reviewed the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) from N70 to N100 a plate of meal per child.

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Ms. Sadiya Umar Farouq, disclosed this at the commemoration of the 7th Africa School Feeding Day in Abuja with the theme “Nutrition and Human Capital Development in Africa Through Increased Investment in Home Grown School Feeding.”

Farouq said that the increment was approved by the President Muhammadu Buhari at a time when all hands were on deck to ensure that all public primary school pupils 1-3 were enrolled in the programme in the wake of the devastation caused by the COVID-19 to the stability of millions of households in the country.

She also revealed that series of initiatives were already being deployed to enhance effective programme delivery.

She also stated that the ministry is presently working on a policy framework for the programme and would introduce the concept of school kitchens in 60 model schools across the nation, which would serve as training and skills building centres for cooks and other vendors of the programme.

Farouq added that arrangements were also underway to provide two free meals for Out-Of-School Children from the NHGSFP scheme as it intended to roll out the alternate school programme soon.

She thanked the Nutrition Society of Nigeria (NSN) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) for providing the required regulatory oversight and monitoring compliance on hygiene, food safety and meal quality standards.

The ministry is also working closely with the World Food Programme (WFP), which is providing technical support, capacity building and guidance in the implementation of the NHGSFP.

The school feeding programme, which was introduced in 2016, has enrolled 9,881,773 children in over 53,000 schools, of which 4.1 million pupils have so far been verified and captured on the NHGSFP database, in line with the ministry’s ongoing efforts to establish a verifiable database of beneficiaries of the programme and its interventions.