President Bola Tinubu has approved the reintroduction and implementation of the school feeding programmes across the basic educational levels to address the issues facing out-of-school children.
This was made known by the Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, at a One-Day Retreat on Quick Wins in the Ministerial Deliverables (2023-2027), on Thursday, December 21, 2023, in Abuja.
According to the Minister, President Tinubu directed the restoration of the programme, saying it will help in checking the learning crisis.
Also, , Mamman has expressed the commitment of the Federal Government to return 15 million out-of-school children to the classroom by 2027.
The minister explained that the learning crisis had also been a major issue which he said was a bad product of the out-of-school menace and, hence must be taken seriously.
He said that having robust policies in place was not enough to tackle the challenges but delivering on the policies would go a long way in addressing the problems of out-of-school.
Mamman said, “The Federal Ministry of Education has further distilled the implementation of the Ministerial deliverables to a more detailed implementation with turn-around strategies that would be measurable and capable of providing results that would be very visible to the Nigerian public.
“On out-of-school menace, we would be paying particular attention to this unacceptable phenomenon and in line with President Bola Tinubu’s commitment, would work towards returning 15 million Out-of-School Children back to the classrooms by the year 2027.’’
He also explained that the removal of tertiary institutions from the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) was necessary to give tertiary institutions the autonomy to operate.
He added that the ministry would work with the Minister of Finance/Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to ensure a seamless implementation.
He said, “No Nigerian would be happy with the epileptic delivery of academic activities in our tertiary institutions occasioned by long-unresolved agreements.
“Under the guidance of President Bola Tinubu, we engaged in informal consultations with the tertiary institution’s based unions and have begun to build trust as exemplified by the resolution of the following issues:
“35% increase in salaries of workers in our tertiary institutions, four months payment of salaries for the eight months they were on strike in 2022.
“Others are removal from IPPIS and granting autonomy for recruitment.’’
The National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme is a government-led programme that aims to improve the health and educational outcomes of public primary school pupils. It uses farm produce locally grown by smallholder farmers to provide children with nutritious mid-day meals on every school day.
The program aims to improve the enrolment of primary school children in Nigeria and reduce the current dropout rates from primary school.
The school feeding programme, which was bedevilled by a lot of controversies and corruption allegations in its implementation, was managed by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
