Act of school feeding programme on pupils’ enrolment in primary schools in Enugu State

Abstract

World-over, Primary education is seen as the foundation pillar on which the rest of the other educational setup is built. Investing in  primary or otherwise called basic education is considered a good move to eradicate illiteracy, foster gender equality, sustain economic  growth and reduce poverty. To achieve above, successive governments have introduced several policy/programmes aimed at widening  access to and obtaining quality in basic education. On the account of this, the present study investigated the impact of the recently  Nigerian-introduced school meal programme on pupils’ enrolment in primary schools in Enugu State. For objectivity, concepts related to  the above title were discussed, research question and hypothesis were posed, data were analyzed using mean and interpreted using  respondents’ grand mean. While 242 primary schools were used as study population, 613 made of head-teachers and classroom-teachers  served as respondents. In the course of this investigation, the following were found: 1) School feeding programme has no  positive impact on pupils’ enrolment in primary schools in Enugu State. 2) Both class and head-teachers agreed that, school feeding  programme is not a potent tool to upwardly influence pupil’s enrolment. Based on the above findings, the researcher recommended  inter-alia, thus: 1) Primary education should be made more attractive by waving all forms of fees and related levies. 2) Government  should at all cost stabilize Nigerian nation’s economy to enable every household afford on their own the basics of life, so parents can  become responsive to challenges.