Free school meals: ‘Easier said than done’

The National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) initiated by the present administration in 2016 to support states is meant to improve the health and education output of public schools pupils, in addition to boosting local economy by linking farmers to the school feeding market.

NHGSFP is a component of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) under the office of the vice president, before it was placed under the supervision of Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development in 2019.

Under the arrangement, local vendors obtain produce locally grown by smallholder farmers to provide nutritious meal for pupils in their classrooms once on every school day.

The programme, which provides meals for pupils in Primary 1 to 3, targets millions of pupils while few states sponsor the meals of Primary 4 to 6 kids to ensure uniformity.

President Muhammadu Buhari had in his address to the nation on the COVID-19 pandemic on March 29, 2020, indicated that government had accomplished one of the objectives of the programme on enrolment when he stated that, “We are currently feeding over eight million school pupils in 35 states across 50,000 schools in the nation.”

A teacher in Birnin Kudu, Jigawa State, agrees with the assertion of the president when he said free meals wooed and kept pupils from poor families in schools.

The teacher further said, “In fact, pupils come to school in good time because of the food they receive once in a day and they pay more attention during lessons. This tells you more about the nutritional intake.”

The teacher, who monitors daily food delivery in his school, said the programme had somewhat lifted incomes and reduced poverty among the vendors and local farmers.

“Ironically, pupils’ absenteeism increased from the last week of November, 2019, after meals were suspended by vendors due to non-payment,” he had added.

Although every state has its food menu and modus operandi, an investigation carried out by Daily Trust identified common challenges facing the exercise, with some being peculiar to few states.

In Edo and Jigawa states, the menu was tampered with, thereby compromising quality, with claims of kids being underfed.

A teacher in Jigawa said biskin gero (millet couscous) with miyan kuka (baobab soup) on Wednesdays was substituted with pasta because children did not find it appealing.

Similarly, spinach leaves (a good source of vitamins) which is part of the Thursday meal, is hardly supplied.

Also, a headmaster in Dutse, capital of Jigawa State, said vendors had stopped serving meat, fish and eggs since the beginning of the programme, while the quantity of food reduced after the inclusion of Primaries 4 to 5 pupils.

One of the vendors said she stopped supplying protein because N48,000 was being deducted from her initial payment of N100,000.

When contacted, the Jigawa State NSIP Focal Person, Bala Usman Chamo, said the absence of meat and fruits in the meals was as a result of sharp increase in enrolment without corresponding increase in funding.

Chamo said while the Federal Government proposed to feed a pupil at N70 per meal, the state approved N45, thus each pupil was fed at the flat rate of N45.

In Edo State, cultural practices were not considered in drafting the menu because the NSIP officer, Aladeselu Osayuwanmen, said fried egg was served in places where it was taboo to eat boiled egg.

In Bauchi State, the exercise is trapped in racketeering because of complaints of fake vendors, especially in Bakari Dukku Primary School, Bauchi, where instead of 25 vendors on the register, only 11 served meals.

There are complaints that the size of watermelon and orange slices were small, thereby depriving pupils of the required nutrients and that the food was not palatable.

The NSIP Focal Person in Bauchi, Madaki Ahmed Gololo, confirmed non-compliance with the approved menu and other corrupt practices, which he said were inherited from the previous administration.

In the same way, vendors in some schools visited in Wawa, New Kurwasa, Old Dogongari and New Bussa in Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State, there were complaints of reduction in the quantity of food supplied to them through aggregators.

In other places, vendors complained of being given rotten yam.

In Niger also, instead of jollof rice which is in the menu for Mondays, garau garau (rice and beans mixed with groundnut oil and pepper) is served as few of the vendors said they were short-changed.

Investigation shows that some of the vendors hardly directly participated in the programme. They instead hire third parties as cooks and pay them from their monthly stipends.

In a school in Minna, a cook engaged through such arrangement said she got N5,000 monthly.

She said, “Sometimes the payment is delayed to another month, but at least we have something doing.”

The Programme Officer in the state, Malam Umar Saba, said there was effort to address all anomalies noticed, explaining that some of the issues raised were new to the state office as the vendors had never raised them.

In the meantime, President Buhari has said, to mitigate the effect of COVID-19 on poor families, the free meals will be offered to pupils while they are at home. Thereafter, the FMHDSD said it had started discussions with state authorities to agree on the programme’s delivery modalities.

In the first week of May, a month after the announcement, some states have reportedly not been contacted by the federal authorities on the continuation of the programmme.

In Cross River State for example, Gov. Ben Ayade’s Special Adviser on Children’s Education, Mr. Castro Ezama, said the state had not been contacted yet regarding the resumption of the programme during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Mr. Castro Ezama noted that “it is easier said than done” to achieve the desired objective of the programme as there are many schools that can hardly be reached.

He advised that more effort and resources should be invested in virtual learning rather than free meals.

The Anambra State Commissioner for Basic Education, Prof. Kate Omenugha, said she was not aware of any discussion with the Federal Government on the continuation of the programme to further cushion the effect of the lockdown on poor families.

Nevertheless, the Bauchi State Focal Person and Special Adviser to Gov. Bala Mohammed on the Social Investment Programme (SIP), Hajiya Amina Katagum, said, “We have discussed about the programme at length and we have reached the stage of preparation on how to disburse the food items. We have made preparation and classified the beneficiaries, but we were asked to keep everything on hold until further directives from the ministry.”

She said while free meal had improved enrolment between January and February; when it was temporarily suspended, attendance was low until March when it recommenced.

Similarly, the Abia State NSIP Focal Person, Mr. Chinenye Nwogu, said the state was in touch with “ministry officials” and was preparing data and logistics for the free meals.

Oyo State said it was working with the Federal Government officials to put reforms in motion to ensure that each child received food in their comfort zones, the Commissioner for Education, Barr. Olasunkanmi Olaleye, informed, but added that money had not been released for the exercise.

He said over 300 schools were not covered by the programme in the state.

A parent in Ibadan, Abdulai Lamidi, disagreed with the Federal Government, saying, “Even when the children were still in school, the school feeding was not constant. It is not possible to locate children while on compulsory holiday; some of them have gone to their relatives.”

He noted that officials were rather playing politics with the feeding programme, and therefore, urged government to be more responsive.

Some insiders believe that the major challenge of the programme hinged on the inconsistent payment to the food vendors and called on the authorities to avoid staggered payments.

One of them said, “Truly, inconsistency on the part of government is worrisome, more so that the number of schools participating has been reduced. Some school children don’t even have uniforms, but they go to school because of the food.”