By Politico staff writer
Two-day training for school feeding assessment personnel for the Northern Region has over the weekend ended at the Old City Council Hall in Makeni.
In an interview with Politico, the Director of the School Feeding Programme in the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE), Sengbe Rogers Koker highlighted the importance of the school assessment on the feeding programme.
He said the assessment is geared towards helping the government plan for the school year and also look at the current population in the targeted schools, compared to the present beneficiaries.
He added that the exercise will also help the government to look at the Geographical locations of the schools.
Koker said that the government of Sierra Leone has funded 90% of the school feeding programme in the country and that 800,000 (eight hundred thousand) school-going pupils have benefited from it at various schools across Sierra Leone.
He further stated that President Julius Maada Bio has expanded the school feeding programme in the country since 2018 with a total of 135 (one hundred and thirty-five) Chiefdoms having benefited so far.
"We are feeding pupils in rural communities. Those in big cities can afford what to eat. We are looking at the most vulnerable kids to feed at the moment," he said.
He went on to say that, they encountered some challenges especially when they started expanding the programme to many parts of the country, but they later succeeded in its implementation.
A Representative from Plan International, Andrew Iruguha said the school feeding programme is very important and expensive. He added that the data is showing that more schools have benefited from it.
He said they will do their best as an organization in the programme’s implementation.
The school feeding assessment for the Western Rural and North Region has already ended.
A similar training for the Southern Region will commence this weekend followed by the Eastern region a week later.
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