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Nigeria hires 87,000 cooks for school feeding programme

Wednesday May 23 2018
cook

A man serves lunch from an open-air kitchen at a school near Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria. The country has hired 87,000 cooks to prepare meals for 8.2 million pupils in the National School Feeding Programme. FILE PHOTO | AFP

By MOHAMMED MOMOH

Nigeria has hired 87,000 cooks to prepare meals for 8.2 million pupils in the National School Feeding Programme.

The target of feeding of 5.5 million pupils daily was set when the the programme was introduced by President Muhammadu Buhari last year.

The daily feeding has been extended to 8,260,984 pupils in 45,394 public primary schools across 24 states.

The states currently benefitting include Anambra, Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ebonyi, Zamfara, Delta, Abia, Benue, Plateau and Bauchi.

Local economies

Taraba, Kaduna, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Imo, Jigawa, Niger, Kano, Katsina, Gombe, Ondo and Borno states are also in the programme.

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All 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would eventually benefit from the programme.

Not only has the feeding programme created thousands of jobs, it has also boosted local economies by linking farmers to the school market.

Similarly, the feeding programme continues to record significant milestones in the classrooms as it has led to an increase in enrolment.

Tackle poverty

It also addresses the malnutrition and stunt growth among children, and enhances the chances of the pupils succeeding in education and in life.

The initiative is part of the $1.6 billion funded Social Investment Programme of the federal government to tackle poverty and improve the health and education of children and other vulnerable groups.

The largest school feeding programme in Africa aims at ensuring that even the most disadvantaged children were free from malnutrition.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo said the programme would increase school enrolment and completion.

Child nutrition

Nigeria currently has a primary school dropout rate of around 30 per cent.

Prof Osinbajo said it was necessary to improve child nutrition and health to solve the problem of Nigeria as the third largest population of chronically undernourished children in the world.

It is strengthening local agricultural economies by providing a school market in which farmers can sell their produce, he explained.

Prof Osinbajo also launched the Global School Feeding Sourcebook: Lessons from 14 countries, sponsored by the World Bank and World Food Programme to analyse school feeding initiatives across the globe.

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