Over the past few decades, Nigeria’s primary education sector has faced myriad challenges, such as religious, political, cultural and ethnic divides, coupled with poor facilities and rising insecurity which altogether have increased the number of out-of-school children. The recent abductions of school children by bandits in some northern states of Nigeria bear testament to the high level of insecurity problems facing primary school education in the country.
Despite the fact that primary education is officially free and compulsory, about 10.5 million Nigerian children are not in school. Impliedly, one out of every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria. This necessitates the need to adopt social protection programmes to increase the enrolment and completion rate in primary school. School feeding is a form of social protection programme that has been adopted in many countries throughout the world to keep children in school and provide students the essential nutrients to stay healthy and able to learn.
Over the past few decades, Nigeria’s primary education sector has faced myriad challenges, such as religious, political, cultural and ethnic divides, coupled with poor facilities and rising insecurity which altogether have increased the number of out-of-school children. The recent abductions of school children by bandits in some northern states of Nigeria bear testament to the high level of insecurity problems facing primary school education in the country.
Despite the fact that primary education is officially free and compulsory, about 10.5 million Nigerian children are not in school. Impliedly, one out of every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria. This necessitates the need to adopt social protection programmes to increase the enrolment and completion rate in primary school. School feeding is a form of social protection programme that has been adopted in many countries throughout the world to keep children in school and provide students the essential nutrients to stay healthy and able to learn.