Overhaul school feeding programme for efficiency

The school feeding programme launched by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, on September 6, 2005, has been plagued by perennial crises encumbering proper implementation. Almost two decades on, the programme conceived as homegrown school feeding intervention aimed at improving the nutritional intake of tens of millions of school age children across Nigeria remains largely laden by uncertain policy framework and chaotic execution.

Recent reports indicate grimmer prospects for the initiative as the N100 billion allocated for the implementation in the 2024 budget has become grossly inadequate as current high inflation in the country may have pushed project costs in the region of N540 billion. With the current hike in food prices with inflation rate heading rooftop, the implementation of the project under the current fiscal circle appeared already jeopardised.

Regrettably, failure to successfully implement the school feeding programme has dimmed the optimism of pushing back the worrisome trend of out-of-school children. As envisaged under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) initiated in 2016, the expectation was that the provision of nutritional meals in schools would serve as incentive for sustaining the efforts at significantly reducing the large population of out-of-school-children in Nigeria.

Statistics of out-of-school children in Nigeria remain intolerably high and require decisive responses to reverse the trend. With estimated 18 million-plus children out of the classroom at a most critical stage of their formative years, the country risks a future blight by restiveness, criminality and instability.

As part of its objectives, the NHGSFP seeks to deliver improvement in access to, at least, a decent meal-a-day to complement nutritional requirements to boost health and to provide incentive for school attendance in public primary schools. More importantly, the NHGSFP is conceived as the critical sustainable pillar of the school feeding programme through which smallholder farmers will regularly supply locally grown farm produce to ensure provision of regular meals at affordable prices in public primary schools. The failure of NHGSFP to deliver on its objectives implies that the goal of incentivising enhanced access to education with nutritional feeding would have been defeated. The overarching implication is that the country runs the risk of failing to meet the relevant targets that guarantee human capital development as captured in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda 2030 at greater and higher costs in the future.

It is lamentable that the noble ideals of the school feeding programme have been undermined by a number of inadequacies relating to non-compliance with policy framework as well as administrative flops. Reports of lack of transparency and accountability with respect to programme implementation, as evidenced by the corruption exposé in the school feeding programme under the immediate past administration, call for appraisal of the existing implementation strategies. It would, therefore, be imperative to examine prevailing threats to effective implementation of the programme, which cut across bureaucratic bottlenecks as well as operational inadequacies, which appear to have intensified rather than abate under the current dispensation.

As it stands, the implementation of the school feeding programme has, so far, failed to demonstrate genuine commitment to promoting sustainability in line with the goal of NHGSFP. Emerging realities demand that the framework of the NHGSFP needs to follow through with proper supervision by relevant authorities. It is apparent that failure to effectively supervise implementation of the project has given room to the perpetration of underhand practices leading to inadequate ration, as well as poor quality of meals served to pupils. The relevant authorities must be seen to be taking decisive steps to deal with associated challenges of implementation, which include corruption that could exacerbate with rising costs of food items which, in itself, manifests as huge threats if the programme is not adequately funded.

It should be reiterated that the school feeding programme needs total overhaul to align the implementation with the basics of the policy framework designed for result-oriented implementation. A programme whose overriding success depends on prospects of sustainability should be implemented with proper framework to assess threatening challenges with the view to addressing grey areas. There is no doubt that sustainable implementation of school feeding initiative, in the long run, depends on the survival of smallholder farmers whose productivity will ultimately determine availability of homegrown farm produce required for ensuring steady, healthy and affordable meals.

On a final note, the government should demonstrate greater commitment to addressing the recurrent challenges in respect to the implementation of school feeding programme. Recent reports with respect to the gross inadequacy of budgetary allocation to school feeding programme in 2024 fiscal year demand urgent and decisive attention from the government. There is no alternative to adequate funding of the initiative considering the overarching objectives, which is critical to enhancing a secured and prosperous future for the country. More importantly, the government should provide adequate funding for the implementation of the programme and as well ensure judicious deployment of resources for optimal delivery of those objectives.