School feeding: Kaduna teachers ‘eating food meant for pupils’

Connecting Gender for Development (COGEN), a non-governmental organisation, has alleged that teachers are taking part of the ration meant for pupils in some schools in Kaduna state.

Rachael Musa, one of the monitors of the project, said this during a town hall meeting on the federal government’s home grown school feeding programme.

Musa spoke at the meeting which held in Kafanchan, Jema’a local government area of the state, on Wednesday.

She said the ration for the children do not usually go round.

Musa also said though every child was supposed to be given an egg once week, the egg do not usually go round because of short supply.

Similarly, Monday John, another monitor, alleged that some politicians were collecting money from food vendors on the grounds that they were not members of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC).

John said some members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have equally stopped their children from eating the food, saying it could be poisoned.

He described the development as serious, and urged those involved to stop the act so as not to sabotage the programme.

Esther Gushe, assistant head teacher, Aduwan III Primary School, confirmed that eggs were always in short supply in her school.

Yakubu Kyari, desk officer of the programme in the local government, said he receives between 300 and 400 crates of egg weekly instead of the 730 crates for the 177 schools in the area.

Kyari said teachers eating up food meant for pupils have been warned to desist from the act or risk sanction.

Ebenezer Omolekun, COGEN head of programmes, said findings by the NGO revealed that one egg is being shared for between two to four pupils in 46 schools, while two pupils share juice and biscuit in 26 schools.

He explained that the meeting with the theme, “Together We Can Build Our LGA and Make it More Prosperous” was primarily organised to mobilise communities and stakeholders to monitor the implementation of the school feeding programme.

He explained that COGEN, with support from MacArthur Foundation is tracking the programme in 60 schools, 20 each in Kaura, Jema’a, and Zangon Kataf local government areas.

He said the goal was to ensure successful implementation of the programme in promoting learning, enrollment, retention and completion of primary schools by pupils.

The official said similar town hall meetings were organised in Kaura and Zangon Kataf to enlist community support in monitoring the programme.

A total of 420 schools in the state are being tracked by five NGOs with support from MacArthur Foundation.