School feeding programme has increased pupils' enrollment in C'River - Teachers

The President Muhammadu Buhari led federal government homegrown school feeding programme has gotten a thumbs up from Teachers in Cross River State who said the programme has increased pupil's enrollment in the State.

Cecilia Okon Umo, Head Teacher of the Special Education Primary and Secondary School Calabar, who spoke during an inspection visits by team of media men said that the number of pupils have increased astronomically in her school since the inception of the programme.

Mrs. Umo maintained that special children who ordinarily were not interested in education have now become more serious adding that the population of her school has increased more than what she submitted to government on inception of the programme.

She said that "I want to thank the federal government for this initiative, this school feeding programme has increased enrollment in my school. The number of special children we have now is more than 50% of what we submitted to government".

Also speaking, Head Teacher of the Ironbar Memorial Primary School, Calabar, Mrs. Ekom Egbai Egwudo appealed to the government to review the budget for the programme upward to accommodate more children who have enrolled in the school courtesy of the programme.

She said that "Everything in my school concerning this programme is perfect. My only appeal to President Buhari is to review the budget because the number we submitted before have increased. We have more children now in our school since this programme started".

On her part, a food vendor who is in charge of the school, Queensley Offiong Bassey lamented that the N70 per meal budgeted by government for the exercise is no longer feasible.

She noted that, vendors are running the scheme now as charity as they are not making anything from the programme which ought to have been business.

"The truth is that, we are not making anything from this thing. We have gone beyond business to service because how do you expect us to use N70 to feed them with rice and chicken? We only want to appeal to the federal government to please look into reviewing the money to at least N150", She said.