Bauchi Fires School Principal For Underfeeding Students

Bauchi Fires School Principal For Underfeeding Students

The Bauchi State government has sacked the principal and some staff of Hassan Usman Katsina Unity College (GHUKUC) for denying students full ration in the school feeding programme.

In a statement Thursday morning, the state’s Commissioner for Education, Aliyu Tilde, said the officers were found serving the food of 350 students to over 1,200 students last weekend.

The commissioner did not disclose the name of the principal. He said the state government provided sufficient food items to all its 35 boarding schools before the inception of the school term.

He also said a new principal had been appointed by the ministry for the school.

On Wednesday, the Jigawa State government announced the sack of a secondary school principal following the theft of a computer in the school.

Mr Tilde said a robust high-tech arrangement for monitoring of students’ meals along with designated resident food police would soon be deployed to all boarding secondary schools in the state.

“A new principal was appointed by the Ministry this evening for the Unity School, which draws students from all 19 northern states, ”he said.

He said the era of starving boarding students will become history in the state.

“A robust high-tech arrangement for monitoring of student meals along with designated resident food police will soon be deployed to all boarding secondary schools in the state,” he said.

School Feeding Programme

The state governor, Bala Mohammed, said because Bauchi has the most out of school children in Nigeria, his administration decided to key into all programmes geared towards addressing the situation.

The Federal Government’s National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) now feeds over 9.8 million pupils daily in 32 states, a report by Premium Times showed.

Under the NHGSFP, school children in over 53,000 public primary schools are fed with one free, nutritious meal a day, while it has engaged over 106,000 cooks in the 32 states.

32 states are currently benefitting from the programme.

The school feeding programme has not only helped to increase enrolment rates of pupils in the states, but it is also effectively tackling early year malnutrition and the problem of stunting while improving the cognitive skills of children.

But the programme is also witnessing a lot of corrupt practices from the cooks to the school authorities payment hitches, insufficient cooks, others slow Buhari’s school feeding programme
.
The Bauchi State Government in July pledged to provide the required logistics support for the sustenance of the Home Grown School Feeding Programme in the state.