By Jude Opara
The Kaduna State Government says its school feeding programme has significantly improved child nutrition, eased the financial burden on parents and enhanced the wellbeing of students in public schools across the state.
The Senior Special Assistant to Governor Uba Sani on School Feeding Programme, Engr. Fauziya Buhari-Ado, stated this at the weekend during a free medical outreach organised by the Bantex Memorial Foundation in collaboration with the Second Chance Humanitarian Aid Foundation in Manchok, Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
The outreach provided hundreds of residents with free medical consultations, laboratory tests, diagnosis and treatment for hepatitis, cancer and eye-related ailments.
The Bantex Memorial Foundation was established in honour of the late Bala Bantex, a former Deputy Governor of Kaduna State and one-time Commissioner for Health, whose public service was marked by a commitment to healthcare delivery and community development.
The foundation has sustained annual humanitarian interventions, including free medical outreaches, as part of efforts to preserve Bantex’s legacy of improving access to healthcare for vulnerable communities.
Speaking at the event, Buhari-Ado commended the organisers, describing the outreach as complementary to Governor Uba Sani’s efforts to improve the welfare of residents through investments in education, healthcare and other social interventions.
She disclosed that five public boarding schools in Kaura LGA are currently benefiting from the Kaduna State School Feeding Programme, with the government bearing the full cost of feeding and approved school charges for students in the participating schools.
According to her, the intervention has substantially reduced the financial burden on parents, who are no longer required to pay for their children’s feeding or approved school charges.
“I met with the parents and they acknowledged that government has taken away 100 per cent of the feeding cost as well as the school charges. No parent is required to pay even one naira,” she said.
Buhari-Ado said parents had also testified to improvements in the health and wellbeing of their children, attributing the development to the provision of nutritious meals throughout the school term.
She urged parents to maintain similar standards of nutrition during the holidays to ensure that students do not lose the health gains recorded while in school.
“We don’t want the children coming back to school having lost the healthy weight they gained while in school because they are well fed,” she said.
The governor’s aide also noted that the Bantex Memorial Foundation’s medical outreach, which has been held annually for the past five years, has continued to provide essential healthcare services to residents who might otherwise struggle to access such services.
She expressed optimism that the Kaduna State Government would continue to collaborate with organisations such as the Bantex Memorial Foundation to advance healthcare, education and other social development initiatives across the state.
The Kaduna State School Feeding Programme is one of the flagship social intervention initiatives of the Uba Sani administration, aimed at improving nutrition among students in public boarding schools while reducing the financial burden on families.
The programme provides balanced meals to students throughout the school term as part of broader efforts to improve enrolment, retention, academic performance and human capital development.
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