Kaduna state Commissioner of Education, Malam Shehu Makarfi has commended the federal government for initiating the home grown school feeding programme, saying it has assisted in improving pupils’ enrolment in all over the state.
The commissioner gave the commendation at a grassroots summit on the programme organised by Connecting Gender for Development (COGEN) in collaboration with MacArthur Foundation, held at the Catholic Social Centre Kaduna during the week.
Shehu promised to deal with any person that interferes with funds meant for the feeding programme and also advised stakeholders to come together and find innovations geared towards taking the programme to another level.
While observing that the programme has recorded tremendous success, he however said some challenges ranging from increase in pupils enrolment to lack of enough supplies to cater for all the targeted pupils, has been the challenge faced by the programme.
He also added that the recent statistics on schools in Kaduna state conducted by the National Bureau for Statistics on the home grown school feeding programme was characterised by some mistakes owing to the fact that many schools’ names were omitted, resulting in no feeding in the schools for some time, a challenge he promised to do everything possible to correct.
Earlier in her welcome address, board chairman, Connecting Gender for Development (COGEN), Mrs. Sewuese I. Saiah revealed that the NGO is one of the five funded by MacArthur Foundation tracking the programme implementation of the home grown school feeding in Kaduna state tracking 420 school 16 local governments.
Mrs Sewuese said the NGO was tracking 60 schools across three local government areas of Kaura, Jema’a and Zangon Kataf, aimed at building a grassroots movement of concerned citizens on the home grown school feeding programme delivery, as well as other government projects in their communities.
While calling on all to give their support, she urged them not to relent in their efforts to sustain the programme during and after the NGO withdraws its services from the field.
