13th December, 2011
Pupils in Lagos public primary schools will be entitled to free meals during school periods beginning from next year.
This disclosure was made by the Special Adviser to Governor Babatunde Fashola on Public Health, Dr. Yewande Adeshina, while addressing members of the state House of Assembly yesterday.
Dr. Adeshina said the state government was working on the possibility collaborating with private organisations to bring this to fruition.
“We are working to create an atmosphere where primary school children, from primary one to six, will have access to a meal during the school periods, Monday through Friday.
“We are working in collaboration with some food companies, international partners and we are looking at whether to use the option of pre-package or to use vendors to serve them rice, beans and fried plantain on regular basis under the public-private partnership scheme at that level,†she said, adding that her office had made serious progress on the project.
She said the government is also planning the school clinic projects which would be located in schools. “We are working on a population control policy since the state is having challenges catering for the increasing population.
“We are still trying to figure out whether we should stop catering for families that have more than four children so that they will have to pay for the fifth one. In this case, we may be able to discourage indiscriminate breeding in the state,†she told the lawmakers.
She said the move was to stem the spate of hunger among the school children as it has been observed that children cannot cope with studies when they are hungry.
She noted with dismay that despite the knowledge that hawking of drug is an offence, it has continued within the state. To stem the activities, she said her office had secured the permission of the state governor to establish mobile courts which will try offenders of drug hawking and those selling drugs not meant to be sold.
The Special Adviser, who also used the opportunity to solicit for finance for the various projects she listed for 2012, said the public healthcare revitalisation scheme which is being embarked upon by the state government will gulp N3.7 billion.
According to her, the scheme involves the selection of a primary health centre in each local government and local council development area to be fitted to run for 24 hours and to have about 56 staff each, including three doctors. There will also be a pharmacy, a pharmacists and three pharmacy technologists, a laboratory scientist and three laboratory technologists, 10 nurses and midwives each.
She said her office had done a system audit to know the centres that needed more facilities.
— Eromosele  Ebhomele