<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Bangladesh has signed an agreement with the World Food Programme (WFP) for expanding and improving school feeding programme for the country's primary school students.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The agreement was inked in an event attended by Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bangladesh government introduced a school feeding programme in 2010 and now some 23 lakh students of 15,000 primary schools in 104 upazilas are getting free meals.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Under the new agreement, the school feeding programme will be expanded to more than 150 upazilas, raising the number of beneficiaries to 37 lakh students. Besides, fruits, milk, bread, eggs and other nutritious foods will be served instead of fortified biscuits.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thanks to the feeding programme, the dropout rate has declined by 7.5 percent and the enrolment rate has increased by 14 percent in the primary schools, said Momen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Moreover, Bangladesh has become the 85th member of the School Meals Coalition at an event here on Monday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bangladesh Ambassador to Italy Md Shameem Ahsan and PM’s speechwriter Md Nazrul Islam were present. UNB</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>