Upholding Children’s Right to Education Through Effective Policy Implementation: Analysis of the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (Nhgsfp) in Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines the implementation of the school feeding programme in Nigeria with a view to determining the extent to which the goals of the programme are met and to identify the challenges confronting its effective implementation. The major objective of the paper is to explore the impacts of the programme with respect to increased school enrolment, retention, attendance and learning /performance of pupil Methodologically, a qualitative design was adopted in obtaining materials from secondary sources which include the bulletins of Federal Ministry of Education, journals, policy documents, reports, Newspapers and Magazines. The documents obtained were analyzed using content analysis. The findings of the paper revealed that school enrolment among pupils in primary schools are relatively high as a result of implementation of the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP).It was however discovered that the implementation of HGSFP has not significantly improved the retention and learning among pupils in primary schools. The challenges confronting the effective implementation of the programme include; high pupils-teacher’s ratio, poor learning environment; insufficient funding; low morale among teachers; corruption; and lack of effective monitoring and evaluation. The paper concludes that there is still high rate of out of school children in Nigeria despite the implementation of HGSFP because the conditions for teaching and learning have largely remained unsatisfactory. The study recommends the recruitment of more primary school teachers to cope with the rate of enrolment by school pupils; provision of adequate infrastructure in schools including teaching aids in order to make teaching and learning pleasurable; adequate funding of the NHSFP by both the federal and state government; improved welfare for teachers to boost their morale; increased transparency in the disbursement and utilization of funds meant for implementation of NHGSFP and effective monitoring and evaluation at all stages of implementation of the NHGSFP.