Kaduna school feeding programme: Too many problems too soon

Little Hassana Shehu has a regimented morning schedule: she wakes up, washes herself, picks up her books and pencil; and heads to school.

The 10-year-old class 5 pupil of LEA Primary School, Jere, in Kagarko Local Government of Kaduna State, says she wants to be a medical doctor in future.

But her father, Shehu, a carpenter, says that Hassana’s attitude toward her books has changed recently.

“These days, she wakes up, washes herself, grabs her food flask and spoon, and then zooms off to school.

“Very often, she forgets her books and pencil and I often have to chase her with those items,’’ Shehu adds.

Like Hassana, many primary school children in the neighbourhood now seem to place more emphasis on the free meals, offered to them under the Kaduna State Government’s school feeding programme, over their studies.

At the launch of the school feeding programme on Jan. 18, 2016, Gov Nasir El-Rufai said that the sole purpose of the programme was to boost pupils’ enrolment, attract out-of-school children into classes and retain them there.

He declared that his administration wanted the children to acquire education so as to empower them to become good citizens and better their lives.

Apart from the aim of inducing more children to enrol in primary schools, the programme is also expected to boost the pupils’ nutrition and health with meals which include eggs, beans, vegetables, rice, yam, biscuits and juice, among others.

Kaduna School Feeding

According to the governor, the programme is also expected to create thousands of jobs for caterers, food vendors and labourers.

Two months into the programme, statistics reveal that its primary goal – attracting more children to school – has, indeed, been accomplished, far well beyond expectations.

In February, the state government disclosed that school enrolment had increased by 64 per cent from about one million pupils to 1.8 million pupils.

However, the state government, in its recent assessment of the programme, re-echoed the concerns of little Hassana’s father, Shehu, over the pupils’ prime interest in the free meals; to the detriment of their studies.

Dr Shehu Adamu, the Commissioner of Education, Science and Technology, noted that primary school pupils had developed the habit of leaving school immediately after being served the meals.

“The pupils desert their schools under the guise of going to drink water.

“The feeding programme was introduced to boost school enrolment, pupils’ attendance and retention; so government is very disturbed by the emerging situation where the pupils just come for the free meals with no interest in learning anything,’’ he moaned.

Adamu, therefore, appealed to parents to ensure that the children remained in school after taking their meals, so as not to frustrate the primary goals of the school feeding programme.

“Parents must also ensure that no child returns home until after school closing hours, so that the aim of the scheme will not be defeated.”

As part of efforts to tackle the pupils’ excuse of going home to drink water, the commissioner advised parents to always provide water for their children and wards.

Apart from the children’s penchant for food, the programme has inadvertently exposed some of the challenges facing the state’s educational sector.

Analysts observe that the massive enrolment of pupils has also brought to the fore the major constraints of the educational sector, particularly those relating to the teachers’ neglect and the lack of basic infrastructure.

Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, a retired federal permanent secretary and first chairman of the Kaduna State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), said that programme’s supervision the kept reminding many teachers of their unpaid salaries.

“A programme centred around school children reminds teachers that they have not been paid for months, and they grumble about supervising the free feeding of other people’s children when their own children remain unfed,’’ he said.

Besides, Baba-Ahmed wondered about the long-term fate of the school feeding programme “since its monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are weak.

“My fear is that the operators may not adhere to specifications; making it difficult for the government to assess and establish the real impact of the programme.’’

On his part, Mr Ishaya Dare Akau, an educationist and immediate-past Chairman of the Kaduna State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), described the programme as a “misplaced priority’’.

He argued that the current infrastructure of schools in the state could not cater for the multitude of pupils thronging the schools.

“When I was SUBEB Chairman, we had 1.1 million children and needed 27,000 classes to accommodate them, but we had only 12,000 functional classes, out of the available 19,000, because 7,000 classes were completely dilapidated.

“If we now have 1.8 million fresh pupils in school, it means we need 45,000 classrooms to accommodate them. This means that we must embark on a massive improvement of the basic infrastructure if we want to balance the factors of quality and quantity.

“The government says it spends N50 per child on every meal, which means that N90 million is spent on the programme every day.

“We used to spend N3 million to build and equip a standard classroom, which means that the money sunk into feeding the pupils in a day could give us 30 standard classes.

“My opinion is that the money used in that programme could have been better used to improve teachers’ welfare, build more classes and provide teaching aids and other facilities that would boost the quality of primary education,’’ Akau said.

Sharing similar sentiments, Sen. Danjuma Laah, lawmaker representing Kaduna South Senatorial Zone, described the school feeding programme as a “misplaced priority’’.

“The state government says that it spends N50 to feed each of the 1.8 million pupils and that totals up to roughly N90 million a day. Such a huge amount can be better used if sunk into building classes and equipping them to provide a suitable learning environment.

“Not long ago, I visited some primary schools in my local government area — Kaura Local Government Area — and found that the feeding was done under trees because the classes had either collapsed or had their roofs blown off a long time ago.

“The educational system is certainly in comatose, but feeding the pupils is certainly not the solution.

“Teachers’ morale is at its lowest ebb because many teachers have not received their salaries for months, while text and exercise books, teaching aids and laboratories are hardly available,’’ he said.

A retired primary school headmistress, Mrs. Hamsatu Adamu, also shared a similar viewpoint.

Her words: “Government may have genuine intentions but the school feeding programme should certainly not be a priority, except government is merely interested in quantity (of pupils) over quality (of education).

“In many primary schools, classes are conducted under trees; meaning that such schools will close whenever it rains. The structures in most schools are appalling; that should be government’s main headache and not the pupils’ feeding, which is the duty of parents.’’

Adamu advised government to initiate pragmatic plans to boost the teachers’ morale, adding that many of the teachers were hardly committed to their jobs because of the lack of encouragement.

But Malam Alti Lere, an educationist, said that the only problem he has with the school feeding programme was the timing of the meals.

“In my community, Lere, the meals are usually served between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. From my experience, that is the worst time to give food to children because they may fall asleep immediately after eating the food and consequently learn nothing.

“Again, it is useful to note that some children take light meals before leaving their houses in the morning; so, stuffing them with more food shortly after arriving at school will have a very negative effect on them for the rest of the day.’’

Lere said that he had also observed that his children were visibly now more excited about the free meals than their classes and studies.

“I noticed that more with the children in my compound; they wake up and go after their plates and spoons. Most of the time, they leave for school without their books and pencils, and they have to be called back.’’

Nevertheless, as the government moves toward sustaining and improving the programme, observers underscore the need to put in place more checks to minimise abuse and corruption in the course of its implementation.

Mr Sylvestre Ade, an official of Chikun Local Government Council, said that such checks were very imperative, in view of the massive nature of the programme.

“We have found that the quality and quantity of food supplied to many schools is below expectation; this is largely because there is no strict supervision.

“Government must step up internal checks to ensure quality and avoid abuse.

“Officials should also consistently pay unexpected visits to schools to check the quantity, quality and hygienic conditions of food shared to the pupils in order to guard against unwholesome practices,’’ he said.

An APC official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also called for the initiation of more measures to guard against corrupt tendencies.

He alleged that party officials in Kaura Local Government Area recently undertook routine visits to some schools to verify the claims of food vendors, adding that they found 121 pupils in a school where “379 pupils are supposedly being fed.

“We were shocked by that discovery; we have reported the matter to the authorities and we are sure that there could be many other cases like that.

“We believe the authorities are sincere but just like we have ghost workers on pay rolls, we could also end up with `ghost pupils’ if we do not tighten our checks,’’ he said.

Beyond that, observers have also expressed concern over the hygienic and environmental conditions surrounding the preparation, packaging and consumption of the meals.

For instance, Atung Adaji, a public health officer, wondered why the meals were served without water, in view of the dirt-prone school environments.

“The pupils just pounce on the food, usually with their dirty hands without washing them.

“Sometimes, they move straight from their playgrounds to the field where they collect the food. Unless adequate care is taken, we may soon end up with some food poisoning cases,’’ he said.

Adaji recalled a recent case where some pupils started vomiting after eating a meal in a primary school, and advised government to engage sanitation experts to look into how the foods were prepared, dispensed and consumed.

Adamu, the Commissioner of Education, Science and Technology, while acknowledging the concerns trailing the programme, however, expressed optimism that they would all be addressed.

He said: “Most of the issues are the normal teething problems usually associated with all populist programmes like this one.

“All the same, we shall get over the problems in our bid to ensure that no child is denied his or right to good education, which would open doors for a better future.’’

All in all, analysts acknowledge the good intentions of the state government as to the school feeding programme but underscore the need for it to pay more attention to the quality of education in the state.

They advise the government to put in place a proper teaching and learning environment in the state so as to avoid a situation where its mass primary education programme will be built on a hollow foundation.