… As Ministry feeds 9.2 m school children to expand school enrollment Nationwide
By Joyce Remi- Babayeju
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq has disclosed that out of the 1.8 million Nigerians who took part in the compulsory N- Power programme test under the Federal Government’s National Social Investment Management System, NSIMS, 500,000 applicants have passed the selection test and are qualified for the programme.
Fraouq made this known today in Abuja during a press briefing on the progress so far on NSIMS.
She said, ” a short-list of 550,000 applicants qualified for the final selection to engage 500,000 nationwide to serve as the first stream of the N-Power Batch C programme. This is the Batch C1.”
“The second batch of another 500,000 will subsequently be made in line with Mr President’s directive to engage 1,000,000 beneficiaries under the Batch C.”
While explaining the process of engagement, she said that the 550,000 short-listed applicants are being individually contacted via their e-mail addresses provided and are first advised to check and then immediately log on to the NSIMS self-service portal and enrol their biometric data to qualify for final selection.
Furthermore applicants are advised to access dedicated NASIMS N- Power helplines on 0188883410 or 08176551162 or send an email to support.npower@nasims.gov.ng for further enquiries on their application status and any other questions they may have. They must ensure that they keep their application details handy to ensure hitch free communication with the call centre desk, the minister informed.
Meanwhile the minister said that the ministry is set to implement the National Home- Grown School Feeding programme in which a total of 9,296,823 pupils in classes 1 to 3 in public primary schools will be fed with one nutritious meal daily in all the 54,629 schools across the country.
An additional 5 million children have been included into the feeding programme, she said.
The outcomes of this programme includes increase in school enrolment, improved nutrition for benefiting pupils, boosting of local economies and facilitating job creation through the activities of 103,028 cooks, 100,000 small holder farmers and numerous aggregators and commodity transporters engaged nationwide, the minister explained.
