The Bayelsa Government says it will participate in feeding of pupils from Primary 1 to Primary 3, under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) from next school term.
This is contained in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja by Nneka Anibeze, Special Assistant, Media, to the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
Anibeze quoted state’s Commissioner for Education, Gentle Emelah, saying the decision was reached at a high-level meeting with stakeholders in Bayelsa when a team from the ministry visited the state.
She also said that the purpose of the meeting was to ensure that the state government embraced the school feeding programme.
Anibeze quoted Emelah as saying that the state was working toward fulfilling the requirements and joining the feeding programme next school term.
“We have been working on the modalities of accomplishing all requirements since your first visit and we hope that by the beginning of the next school term, the pupils will be on the programme.
“We understand the importance of the programme and advantages to the state and we are working hard to join the feeding programme,” Emelah said.
Also, the wife of the Bayelsa Governor, Dr Gloria Diri, commended the Federal Government for the initiative.
Diri assured the ministry’s team of her commitment to ensure that the state fulfilled the conditions for the programme to take off.
Earlier, the Technical Assistant to the Minister on the NHGSFP and Team Lead Zainab Abubakar spoke.
Abubakar said that the first official visit in 2021 was to provide technical support and guidance to the state on the implementation requirements of the programme.
“We are here to carry out an additional technical assessment of Bayelsa’s readiness based on the observations and recommendations of the first assessment.
“This second visit is to ascertain the compliance level of the state on the requirements,” she said.
Abubakar added that over 9 million children are currently benefiting from the programme. (NAN)
