The Federal Government has begun the biometric data capture and enumeration of 95, 983 public primary school pupils in Osun state, benefiting from its Home Grown School Feeding Programme.
Speaking with newsmen during the exercise, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Hajia Umar Farouk announced that the number of beneficiaries will be increased to accommodate more pupils.
The leader of the ministerial verification team for Osun State who spoke for the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Mr. Taiwo Bashorun, explained that the Home Grown School Feeding Programme had been designed in a way to aid the physical growth of the children and stimulate their mental development, with a view to improving the education and health outcomes of the pupils.
Mr. Bashorun said the Home Grown School Feeding Programme was also creating employment and empowerment for many people in its value chain system including farmers, traders and cooks.
He said about 1500 schools benefiting in the programme across the 30 local government areas of Osun State would be visited to ascertain the quality and quantity of the food given to the pupils.
Addressing the verification team, Head teacher of Ansar-U-Deen Primary School, Ifon-Osun, Orolu Local Government, Mrs. Sarah Adekunle-Oni thanked the federal government for the intervention which she said had saved hundreds of her pupils who would have dropped out of school.
Mrs. Adekunle-Oni pointed out that many of the pupils relied solely on the federal government school feeding for their breakfast and lunch.
Similarly, at United Primary School, Erin Osun, in Irepoodun Local Government, food vendors appealed to the federal government to increase the supply of food as the population of pupils have increased.
One of them, Mrs. Tijani Kafayat also lamented the increase in the cost of food items and ingredients, saying the money allocated to them was no longer enough to meet the demands of the pupils.
At all the schools visited, pupils appealed to the federal government not to stop the exercise as they maintained that some of their parents pushed them to public school because of the free food.
One of them, a nine year old pupil of Ansar-U-Deen Primary School, Miss Muslimat Raji, said the food made her to leave her former private school.
Recently, the federal government had promised that by year 2023, five million new beneficiaries would be added to the list nationwide.
Adenitan Akinola
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