The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Kwara State on Tuesday announced its readiness to launch an insurance scheme for public primary schools.

The coordinator, Alhaji Abdulganiyu Onimajise, said Kwara will be the first state in Nigeria to flag-off the scheme which he added will commence by the end of the month.

The scheme, which according to the coordinator will attend to pupils in public schools, is part of federal government's plans to capture the entire public in the insurance policy.

He said the education insurance scheme started with tertiary institutions and has moved to the primary school level.

"The management of NHIS discovered that most states are yet to key into the programme, so the scheme introduced a social insurance programme which will be jointly funded by the federal and state governments. ?We want the state to amend the laws setting up community insurance so that it can be state health insurance programme with an agency to manage it. ?Once that is done in line with the National Health Acts, funds will be paid by NHIS to the state agency to cater for vulnerable groups," he said.