Beyond the school feeding program

Education is the overall player in the process of development. That is why this popular saying goes on that ‘If you want to destroy a country, attack its educational system’. This is not a fallacy or misguiding argument but a self-explanatory syllogism and an obvious truth.  Education should be taken serious and given more priority […]

Education is the overall player in the process of development. That is why this popular saying goes on that ‘If you want to destroy a country, attack its educational system’. This is not a fallacy or misguiding argument but a self-explanatory syllogism and an obvious truth. 

Education should be taken serious and given more priority than anything in a country yearning for development. To my surprise, education especially at primary level, is the most neglected sector in Nigeria. Despite the fact that our educational system needs total overhaul, till date, no effort put in place to overhaul the system.

Home grown school feeding program is one of the programs initiated to overhaul our primary education, because government understand that a number of primary school pupils do not take breakfast before going to school. So the program is meant to help pupils with breakfast so as to draw their attention to school and make them strong enough to carry out their learning activities.

The program is not faulty, but to me, this is not what is needed for now especially in urban areas. The program is of course helpful in rural areas where you hardly find ten pupils in a school. Therefore, the food provided will attract their attention to school though shades of trees serve the classroom purpose. I have visited some rural primary schools and I learnt that in some schools, if not because of the food provided, you hardly find a pupil in the whole school. So, the program is most required in rural primary schools.

In urban primary schools the program is not required. What is required in urban primary schools is the improvement of educational facilities, teaching and learning materials, proper supervision and teachers’ welfare. The schools are not adequate enough to accommodate the population. That the teacher-student ratio that should be 1:35 is now 1:135 in many urban primary schools. We need more schools, more qualified teachers and their welfare and proper supervision to overhaul our educational system. And to achieve this, the government should inject more than what is now injected into the system. 

Bello Ibrahim Gangare, [email protected]