The Federal Government has begun biometric data capture of 339,642 pupils in Kebbi State to scale up implementation of the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP).
Malam Aminu Attahiru-Zagga, a Principal Administrative Officer, Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, stated on Tuesday in Birnin Kebbi at the start of enumeration of pupils in the state.
Attahiru-Zagga said the exercise was to ensure that every single child in the country has access to education by providing at least one meal a day to motivate parents to enroll their children.
“We are here to officially flag-off NHGSFP enumeration exercise and capture actual data of pupils biometrically, receiving feeding from the government and cooks which commenced on Aug. 2, 2021 in the state.
“It is important to note that the implementation of NHGSFP began in 2016 by President Muhammad Buhari’s administration with the aim to increase enrolment rates of children from class one to three in public primary schools in the state,’’ he said.
Attahiru-Zagga added that the programme would improve the nutritional and health status of the children, stimulate local agricultural production and boost income of farmers by creating a viable and smallholder markets.
“The programme will also provide empowerment and increase living standard and the local economy.
“The enumeration exercise was aimed at verifying and updating the existing number of beneficiaries of NHGSFP for better effectiveness, transparency and accountability.
“Currently, we have nine million students enrolled and we are expected to increase the enrolment to 10 million pupils nationwide as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The exercise was specifically targeted to reach out to vulnerable Nigerians, widows, poor people and encourage parents to enroll their children in schools,’’ he said.
Attahiru-Zagga called on parents of un-enrolled children to enroll them so that they could benefit from the programme.
Mr. Joseph Yaro-Machika, the Director, National Orientation Agency (NOA) in the state, said the agency was saddled with responsibility of distributing registration forms to public schools.
Yaro-Machika said that personnel of the agency with support of local councils’ officials were distributing the forms in some areas with security challenges.
He also said the personnel would handle the biometric registration alongside the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members engaged for the exercise.
“We will not leave any school un-captured in all the 21 local government areas of the state.
The corps members will handle the registration exercise of 13 local government areas, while personnel of the agency would conduct the exercise in the remaining eight local government areas that have security challenge issues,’’ he said.
Malam Bello Abubakar, the Head Teacher, Waziri Ummaru Nizzamiya Model Primary School, said more than 637 pupils had been captured in the ongoing exercise.
Abubakar said that no fewer than eight food vendors were engaged to supply meal to the pupils in the school under the programme.
The school feeding programme is designed to ensure that each pupil from primary one to primary three in public school receive one free nutritious meal during school hours.
