The All Nigeria Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS), has written off the Federal Government’s School Feeding Programme, describing it as a conduit pipe to siphon public funds.
The North Central President of the association, Alhaji Katcha Kudu, said this while fielding questions from journalists at the venue of the zonal annual workshop of ANCOPSS at the Ta’al Conference Centre in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital.
Kudu argued that the school feeding programme was a failure and noted that the amount of money spent was not justifiable given the quality of meals given to students.
According to him, “The school feeding programme is a total failure and a means to enrich some few friends of this administration.
“Principals are not even involved in the implementation and therefore we don’t even have a say.
“The government should have a rethink and take serious inventory of the exercise and stop wasting national resources.
“There are better programmes that will improve the life of the poor.”
He called on participants at the ongoing workshop to use the occasion to develop and improve their administrative ability in order to impact positively on secondary schools.
The workshop, which is expected to last for five days, is aimed at training teachers of secondary schools for better school teaching in the country.
The association used the opportunity of the event to warn members against any involvement in examination malpractice.
The National Home Grown School Feeding Programme was formally launched by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in Abuja.
The programme is part of a N500 billion funded Social Investment Programme announced by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to tackle poverty and improve the health and education of children and other vulnerable groups.
When fully realised the school feeding component of this programme aims to support states to collectively feed over 24 million school children.
The programme, which aims to provide free school meals with food procured from local smallholder farmers, seeks to strengthen communities across the country by increasing school enrolment and completion; improving child nutrition and health; strengthening local agricultural economies by providing a school feeding market in which farmers can sell their produce; creating employment opportunities with jobs in catering, processing, farming, etc.
