The Gombe State Ministry of Education has rejected allegations of underfeeding at Government Girls Mega College, Doma, attributing complaints from final-year students to meal time disruptions caused by the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination timetable.

Some SS3 students sitting the examination had complained of going without food for extended periods, alleging the examination schedule prevented them from accessing meals at their usual times.

The Special Assistant on Media to the Gombe State Ministry of Education, Saidu Malala, insisted in a telephone interview that no shortage of food existed at the school and that students were fed three times daily. "Students get food in the morning, afternoon, and later in the evening, around 5 pm. Recently, we distributed non perishable food items to boarding schools. As you know, we have 20 boarding schools across the state," Malala stated.

He said the ministry had verified the complaints with the Director of School Services and the school principal and found no evidence of underfeeding. "As far as I'm concerned, we don't have any case of underfeeding," he added.

Malala explained that the disruption stemmed directly from the WAEC timetable. SS3 students begin examinations at 10 am, which coincides with breakfast time, and their second paper falls around noon or 1 pm, pushing lunch to 5 pm. Dinner is served at 6:30 pm.

"Unfortunately, they can't eat then until they are through with the first paper. It's because of the examination schedule that they don't receive their lunch until 5 pm," Malala disclosed.

He noted that the school's population of 1,834 students, with approximately 500 in SS3, made it impractical to prepare separate meals for examination candidates. "So what they usually do is cook the food at once, and for them to cook separately may be difficult because ingredients are usually measured for particular meals. It's going to be tedious," he said.

The ministry confirmed the state government had recently distributed food supplies to boarding schools statewide ahead of the examination period.