Lagos to spend 11billion on school feeding programme

The Lagos State Government has revealed plans to launch an N11 billion budgeted school feeding programme.

Special Adviser of the Office of Civic Engagement, Princess Aderemi Adebowale, stated this on Monday during a press briefing celebrating the second-year anniversary of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, in Alausa, Ikeja.

According to Adebowale, the school feeding called, Snacks for Thought programme would complement the efforts of the home-grown school feeding programme of the Federal Government which serves only pupils from primary one to primary three.

She said, “The programme will cost the government N11bn. We are going to partner organisation on this. We already have over 400 volunteers that will work with us.”

Adebowale noted that the feeding programme was necessary to reduce the out-of-school children in Lagos State in which a report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) put at 229,264 in 2018.

“In order to curb this rising numbers, we need more than statutory allocations. Intervention such as this will increase the rate of enrolment in schools and serve as a preventive security measure in reducing crime and hooliganism that may later on disrupt the socio-economic life of the state.”

The Federal Government’s 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.