The Kaduna State Government said it would continue to feed pupils in primary four to six when school resumes in September 2018.

The Commissioner for Education, Ja’afar Sani, disclosed this when he appeared before the Kaduna State House of Assembly Committee on Education, Science and Technology to defend his ministry’s 2019 budget.

He said Governor Nasir El-Rufai had given the directives to source for fund for the continuation of the programme.

The feeding programme as conceived by the federal government covers pupils from primary one to three.

The ministry has a budget estimate of over N24 billion, with N14 billion earmarked as capital and N10.1 billion for recurrent.

Directors in the ministry and heads of parastatals accompanied the commissioner to defend their budget.

Mr Sani explained that the ministry and its parastatals were able to achieve over 37% of their budget performance, adding that the present administration of Mr El Rufai is up and doing to make Kaduna State excel in terms of providing quality education.

The commissioner also disclosed that Kaduna State led the other northern states in the WASSCE results for 2017 and 2018. The state was 12th in the whole country, he said.

The budget officer Kaduna State University, Badamasi Shika said over N7 billion was earmarked for next year’s budget.

He said the bulk of the fund will be spent on capital projects such as building of additional lecture theatres and provision of teaching and learning research facilities.

The State Universal Basic Education led by its chairman, Nasiru Umar, disclosed that about N6 billion will be spent by the board to build classrooms across the twenty three local government areas.

The chairman added that efforts were made to ensure that each class does not contain more than forty pupils that a teacher can control amicably.

He said the board would also ensure that only competent teachers are recruited to teach.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Education, Yusuf Liman, said the committee would have increased the ministry’s budget, but for the fact that the state was unable to receive the World Bank loan.

“They have recorded a lot of achievements which we did not expect with the little resources they have at hand. We really appreciate their effort,” he said.

(NAN)