THE OSUN O’MEALS SUCCESS STORY
It gives me great pleasure to be here to speak on the Osun experience of the Home Grown School Feeding and Health Programme (HGSFHP) which we call O’MEALS in the State of Osun.
THE ORIGIN
This programme began with the inclusion by African Governments of locally-sourced school feeding programmes in the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in 2003.
The same year, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) along with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Millennium Hunger Task Force also lunched another initiative involving ‘a pilot Home Grown School Feeding and Health Programme (HGSFHP) designed to link school feeding to agricultural development through the purchase and use of locally and domestically produced food’.
Nigeria happened to be one of the 12 pilot countries invited to implement the programme. This resulted in the Federal Government coming up with the Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act in 2004, which provided the legislation for the execution of HGSFHP.
The Federal Ministry of Education consequently selected 12 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja), to begin a phased-pilot implementation of the programme. Osun was fortunate to be among them.
ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN OSUN
The programme began in our state as Osun State Home Grown School Feeding and Health Programme in May 2006. However, on our assumption of office in November 2010, we undertook a comprehensive review of education, including the school feeding programme, which we re-launched as O’MEALS on April 30, 2012. Its execution began immediately across all the 1,375 Elementary Schools in Osun.
The programme interestingly is consistent with our administration’s Six Point Integral Action Plan — of banishing poverty, banishing hunger, creating work and wealth, creating functional education, restoring healthy living and engendering communal peace and progress.
The overall objectives of O-MEALS are to:
To improve the nutritional and health status of pupils
To ensure that pupils are dewormed regularly for healthy living.
To enhance enrolment, retention and completion of pupils in schools.
To reduce poverty and stimulate development of small and medium scale enterprises.
THE MENU
We also engaged consultants to draw a menu schedule for the five school days of Monday to Friday. They came up with this:
MONDAY: BREAD +STEW + WHOLE EGG + ORANGE
TUESDAY: RICE + BEANS + STEW + CHICKEN + ORANGE
WEDNESDAY: YAM + FISH STEW +BANANA
THURSDAY: RICE + EGUSI GARNISHED WITH VEGETABLE + CHICKEN + BANANA
FRIDAY: COCOYAM PORRIDGE + VEGETABLE + BEEF + ORANGE
(Beans are to be served when yam is off season. Egbo (corn meal) + beans to be served when cocoyam is off season).
In addition to feeding, we also carry out deworming exercise twice every year. This is to prevent the food from being shared with the pupils by worms in the stomach and maximise the nutritional value of what is eaten. This is the health component of the programme.
THE CATERERS
We engaged the services of 3,007 community caterers to prepare the food for the pupils as hygienically as possible. To be able to achieve this, the caterers were first medically screened and certified fit and proper, retrained on the rudiments of cooking and particularly made to understand the importance of, one, hygiene in disease prevention and secondly, good nutrition to healthy living.
For effective administrative purposes, they were organised into 124 functional Cooperative Investment and Credit Societies (CICS) in order to benefit fully from bulk procurement and allied services. Necessary operational funds are then transferred to the personal bank accounts of each caterer through their CICS.
The account from which this funding emanates is secure because it is not accessible through issuance of bank cheques. Funds can only be transferred from the account into the caterers’ and other contractors’ accounts by approved mandates. This will minimise, if not eliminate altogether, incidents of fraud and diversion.
The caterers receive funds in advance concerning meals to be prepared for school pupils within a two-week period (i.e. 10 school days). For organisational purpose, the number of pupils assigned to each caterer varies and so is the fund allocated.
Each caterer also benefits from a government facilitated interest-free loan of N41,500 for the acquisition of cooking and other kitchen utensils. The loan repayment period is spread over 36 months, with N1,152.78kobo deducted from their account every month.
The community caterers are all provided free-of-charge with a pair of uniforms (comprising gowns, caps and aprons) by the State Government of Osun at a cost of N11.6 million to the government.
THE COST
The total number of pupils being fed is now well over 252,000. This comes to about N14.8 million per day, N74 million per week, N325.6 million per month and N3.6 billion per annum. This is reducible to about N50 per pupil. The sum of N601,400 is paid out to the 3,007 caterers as transport fares on a daily basis.
SUPERVISION
For effective implementation, the O’MEALS Programme is monitored primarily by Planning Officers within the Local Government Education Authority office who are responsible for carrying out the implementation logistics. They act as liaison between the O’MEALS Office and the community caterers.
There are also the Local Inspectors of Education who also operate at the local government authority level. Then, there are the Independent Monitors who are drawn from the ranks of retired civil servants, Parent Teachers Association and community leaders. The O’MEALS Secretariat staff act as coordinators for the monitors.
The State Government carries 40 per cent of the financial burden of the programme while the Local Governments, which have responsibility for primary education, carry 60 per cent.
INTEGRATION WITH AGRICULTURE AND LOCAL EMPOWERMENT
To be able to feed these pupils, 15,000 whole chickens, 254,000 eggs, 35 heads of cattle and 400 tonnes of catfish are purchased weekly from farmers and food vendors. In keeping with the original objective of making the programme home grown, the O’MEALS has an input supply chain that is linked to our various agricultural development projects. Consequently, our Osun Fisheries Out-growers Production Scheme (OFOPS) provide the catfish used for the school feeding programme while Osun Broilers Out-growers Programme (OBOPS) provide part of the chickens.
Our administration initiated a ‘Cocoyam Rebirth Programme’, which is a major project under the direct supervision of the Deputy Governor.
The cocoyam scheme was designed with the aim of directly reaching the grassroots and practicing farming communities on how to improve and enhance cocoyam production, utilisation and marketing in the state. The ultimate objective is to revitalise cocoyam cultivation, with a view to using it on the O’MEALS menu.
In view of this, a training session was conducted for state and local government extension workers on cocoyam utilisation, production, marketing and post-harvest handling. The training programme, held on June 28, 2012, was attended by 234 extension workers.
A similar training programme was conducted for 2,000 farmers on August 8, 2012 across all the nine Federal Constituencies in the state. In the end, 332 Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES) cadets, one from each of the electoral wards in the state, were selected as Cocoyam Off-takers for the rebirth programme. Cocoyam cultivation is not only thriving in Osun, it has become a regular staple in the school feeding menu.
WORTHY PARTNERSHIP
The commitment, passion, prudence and seriousness we deployed to O’MEALS has earned us the worthy support and partnership of the Imperial College, London-based Partnership for Child Development (PCD).
Through this fruitful collaboration, we have received technical assistance in redesigning the school feeding programme through endorsement of the Transition Strategy Plan Document, among others, from PCD.
SCHOOLS RECLASSIFICATION
To be able to implement O’MEALS, we had to reclassify the educational system in Osun. Before our inauguration, school feeding only covers primary one to two, but we wanted to extend it to primary four. However, we considered it improper, tormenting and conflictual for some pupils to be served free food everyday while others are just watching. So, we reclassified the school system into elementary schools (for primary 1–4), middle schools (for primary 4-JSS3) and high school (for SS1-SS3). With this, we have been able to implement O’MEALS exclusively and successfully in elementary schools.
THE IMPACT OF O’MEALS
The immediate impact of O’MEALS is that within the first five weeks of our introduction of the O’MEALS, elementary school enrolment shot up by 38,935 pupils (from 155,318 to 194,253), representing 25 per cent and the highest elementary school enrolment in Nigeria. The programme has since extended to cover about 252,000 pupils.
The programme has likewise improved the health status of our school pupils benefiting from the programme. It has encouraged retention and completion and drastically reduced the incidents of school absenteeism in comparison with the pre-O’MEALS period.
We are designing a programme of unique identification for every pupil benefitting from O’MEALS in which every pupil with carry a smartcard which will be entered into a POS or a device that automatically effects payment for the exact number of pupils fed, absolutely eliminating padding or any attempt at fraud.
This programme has lifted the status, not just of farmers, but mostly our people in the rural areas and the urban poor. It is our flagship programme that endeared us to the populace and, among others, helped us to secure re-election and the victory of our party at every election since then.
I have been invited twice to speak on the programme and share our experience at the British Parliament while my deputy was also invited to the United Kingdom and South Africa for the same purpose.
CONCLUSION
Good nutrition is central to the development of a child. Researches have confirmed that a child well fed on good nutrition will grow up physically strong and in good health, be well adjusted socially and develop the confidence to face life. For a school pupil, this is necessary for proper brain development and cognition which are needed for a successful educational endeavour and the laying of a solid foundation in life. It is an undeniable pattern replicated in our society, generation after generation, that well fed children will most likely be more successful in life than the hungry and malnourished ones. Any development effort must therefore begin with providing good and nutritious food to school pupils, indeed, all children.
It is my fervent hope that the Home Grown School Feeding and Health Programme will be extended to all pupils in public schools and made an integral part of education for all pupils in Nigeria — public and private.
I thank you for your attention.
PRESENTATION MADE BY THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF OSUN, OGBENI RAUF AREGBESOLA, AT THE LAUNCH OF THE NATIONAL HOME GROWN SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAMME STRATEGY HELD AT THE STATE HOUSE BANQUET HALL, ASO ROCK VILLA, ABUJA, ON JUNE 9, 2016
