The Ministry of Education said that school feeding that has begun in drought affected areas has increased students’ interest to learn at large.
Director of School Improvement Program with the Ministry, Yasabu Birkineh, during a media discussion on Quality of Basic Education in Ethiopia organized by the UN community yesterday said that over 4.9 million students became beneficiaries on school feeding and as a result students’ interest to attend class has increased since 2016.
Yasabu noted that students’ concentration, result, female students participation has increased and school dropouts has decreased as well.
The Ethiopian government has allocated 798 million ETB to deliver food and nutrition to students. Regional governments have also contributed money from their budgets to support the effort.
In some parts of the country where the drought was severe, school materials were also distributed to students, it was noted.
According to Yasabu, the Minitsry of Education, Ministry of Health and regional states have set a national government led school feeding strategic program called School Health and Nutrition Program.
Walta has learnt that the strategy is directed to higher education officials and when it becomes operational it is expected to benefit many students at national level.