Making Primary Education Attractive: Quality of School Feeding Programme in Two South Western States of Nigeria

Abstract

The enrolment and the attendance in public primary schools in Nigeria keep going down every year and the statistics of out-of-school children growing. This led to the introduction of School Feeding Programme (SFP) in all the states of the federation. It is believed that SFP can improve enrolment, attendance as well as completion rate of primary education, if well utilised. However, these can only be achieved through proper implementation of SFP. Hence, this study examines the quality of implementation of SFP in Osun and Oyo states of Nigeria. The study adopted triangulation design of mixed methods. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 90 primary school teachers, 75 parents and the State Coordinator of SFP from each state. Three self-designed research instruments were used for data collection namely; Perception of Parents about Quality SFP (0.75); Perception of teachers about SFP (0.71) and State Coordinator of SFP Interview guide. Five research questions were answered. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis. Results show that in Osun State, there is equal access to school meal among all primary classes I to IV pupils while Oyo State feeds primary I to III and some schools are not receiving meal at all. Both states are still struggling with quality and quantity of food for pupils, though report from Osun State shows better quality. There are fair community inputs in SFP in Osun State while this was found low in Oyo State. Qualitative data showed that overall success of the programme is at an average level in Osun State while it is low in Oyo State. It was recommended that Oyo state government should endeavour to improve the quality of implementation of SFP by adopting some of the strategies used in Osun States so as to attract learners and produce the expected results.