Home-Grown school feeding programme: Pupils underfed on low quality meals

The National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), with a target of reaching 12 million pupils, is feeding over 9.5 million pupils in 30 states, with each state having its list of homegrown foods supplied for the programme. However, the menu is said to have been tampered with in some states, and the amount of food […]

The National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP), with a target of reaching 12 million pupils, is feeding over 9.5 million pupils in 30 states, with each state having its list of homegrown foods supplied for the programme. However, the menu is said to have been tampered with in some states, and the amount of food expected to be given to each pupil reportedly slashed.

For instance, the food menu in Jigawa State is said to have been tampered with thereby compromising on quality. For instance meat, fish and fruits were absent from the menu in most of the schools visited by our reporter.

The food items used in the menu indicated that pupils were provided with jollof rice (a popular Nigerian rice recipe) with meat on Mondays; beans porridge with fish and oranges on Tuesdays; ‘biskin gero’ (a local couscous dish made from millet) with dried baobab leaves soup on Wednesdays; jollof rice with spinach leaves on Thursdays; while on Fridays, it was biscuit and fruit juice.

Sources in some schools visited in Dutse, Kiyawa, Guri, Birnin Kudu and Gwaram LGAs said vendors have stopped serving meat, fish and fruits.

A teacher in Birnin Kudu said ‘biskin gero’ was substituted with pasta by the vendors in all the schools visited.

It was also gathered that spinach leaves (a good source of vitamins) which was part of the Thursday meal, had been removed as the food vendors hardly supplied it.

Daily Trust, however, discovered that the change in the list of foods was necessitated after it was discovered that the pupils didn’t find the local dishes appealing.

Though primary school enrolment in the state has increased, the quantity and quality of food have dropped compared to what was obtainable at the beginning of the national school feeding programme.

One of the food vendors in Gwaram Tsohuwa said food was supplied to schools only after reimbursement and when there was no payment, the food supply also stopped. “For instance this term, pupils were given food only in the first and second weeks because the vendors did not get paid for the remaining weeks.”

A headmaster in Dutse LGA said vendors in his school, and indeed many other schools, served meals with either meat or fish only twice since the commencement of the programme.

He said the vendors reduced the quantity of food after the introduction of pupils of primary four to six into the programme by the state government.

According to him, biski was removed from the menu because it was common in every household and the children preferred a change of diet from all indications. “No one could stop them from throwing it away and authorities would not want food wasted,” he explained.

In the case of his school, vendors substituted biski with jollof rice, but others opted for pasta, which was not homegrown, he added.

In Dutse LGA, one of the vendors who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she prepared and supplied meals with meat and fish for only two weeks, at the beginning of the programme but that she was left with no option than to remove the two items because she was shortchanged.

“I am receiving N100, 000 from the Federal Government but N48,000 is being deducted from the money every month for allegedly financing the feeding of classes four to six that are under the care of the state.

“The N52,000 that I am left with is not enough to provide enough food with meat for one month. We are only managing the money we have,” the vendor said.

Another food vendor in Gwaram said after the deductions, the money left was not enough to buy items listed on the menu. She added that her monthly allocation for feeding 100 pupils was N110, but that she was left with the sum of N70, 000 after deductions.

“In the past I was buying meat and fruits, later I was compelled to redesign the menu by not only dropping meat and fruits but also reducing the quantity. The funding is no longer sufficient.

“Timely release of the fund is another challenge. It is now two weeks (first week of November) since the last payment was made and pupils are not getting their daily free meals as a result,” she also said.

The vendors bought food items from local markets around them and also travel to Kachako, a town in neighbouring Kano State, to make purchases.

When contacted, Jigawa State Focal Person of the Special Investment Programme, Bala Usman Chamo, said the absence of meat and fruits in the pupils’ meals was as a result of sharp increase in school enrollment without corresponding increase in the funding for the feeding programme.

He said the programme was conceived to feed a pupil at the cost of N70 per meal.

Chamo noted that the Federal Government only targeted primary one to three pupils; but that the state government decided to provide funding for feeding primary four to six pupils.

According to him, since the programme was flexible, the state government approved the sum of N45 per pupil per meal.

He explained that the change in the feeding cost was communicated and approved by the Federal Government thus each child was fed at flat rate of  N45, adding that with the balance of N25 from the federal government’s payment, the state was meant to pay just N20.

“The state government has never missed its commitment of N20 top up which is about N65 million monthly. From November 2017 to October this year, Jigawa has paid over N1.4 billion for the top up.”

On the change of food in the menu, Chamo said owing to the flexibility of the programme, each state was allowed to design its menu based on the local produce. He said biski was substituted with pasta because the pupils rejected the local dish.

And in Edo State, no fewer than 21,928 pupils in 121 schools in Uhumwonde and Orhionmwon local government areas received free meals under the programme.

It was also learnt that 221 food vendors were recruited to provide food for the pupils and the state government was said to be feeding primary four to six to complement the Federal Government.

Findings also revealed that some schools that benefited from the programme in the previous term have yet to receive any meal this (first) term.

The weekly menu showed, Mondays, yam, cocoyam or plantain porridge; Tuesdays, noodles and egg; Wednesdays, beans and bread; Thursdays, jollof rice and beef; and Fridays, milk and biscuits. All the food items were said to have been sourced from local farms.

Our reporter, who visited Esigie Demonstration Primary School on Tuesday, observed that pupils were given noodles with half of a boiled egg, instead of a full boiled egg.

Food vendors sent to Oga Primary School, where the programme was about to commence, allegedly absconded after receiving payments.

One of the vendors said payment was done on monthly basis through bank accounts.

“They pay us monthly. We go to the local markets to buy the food items. We were warned that only food produced locally should be cooked for the pupils and this is why we go to the local markets to get food items,” the vendor said.

The vendor confided in our reporter that most vendors shared the meals among all the pupils because the state government had not started feeding pupils in primary four to six.

Speaking with our reporter, the Focal Person, National Social Investment Programme in Edo State, Aladeselu Osayuwanmen, said the programme has not started in all schools in the two LGAs used as pilot for the scheme.

“To make sure that the scheme succeeds, we are allowing the communities to recruit the food vendors so that they can also monitor the exercise but some of these vendors have issues with their bank accounts and we don’t give money in hand,” he explained.

On giving pupils half of a boiled egg, she said “it is not one egg to a pupil; government is paying N70 to feed a child and an egg is N50 while noodles is N50 so, we agreed that they should share the egg so that it can reach every pupil.

“There are areas where it is taboo for a family to eat boiled egg so in those places the caterers fried the eggs so that all the pupils can eat it,” she further stated.

She said each vendor fed a maximum of 150 pupils at the rate of N70 per meal. She said new vendors would be sent to schools where those contracted earlier had absconded.

 

This story was supported by MacArthur Foundation.