Accra, July 14, GNA- The Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition has called on the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service to ensure timely release of feeding grant for effective running of the special schools.
The Coalition said its investigation revealed that the release of feeding grants to the special schools had not been regular.
This was in a statement signed by Joseph Atsu Homadzi, National Chairman, GNECC, to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.
The statement said the shortage of food in the Senior High Schools was a widespread situation and required an urgent action by duty bearers.
“The rapid investigation carried out by GNECC Regional Executives in seven regions; Ashanti, Central, Greater Accra, Eastern, Western, Bono and Volta confirmed the food shortages in the schools,” it -said.
In the investigation, the statement said, parents were being asked to provide financial support to their children to manage themselves due to the reported food shortage in some of the schools.
It said the shortage of food had led to students resorting to some form of barter trading.
“Some students who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that
they have only one meal a day. In some schools, dried fish are changed into powdered fish and small quantities are used to prepare stew and soup for the students,” it said.
GNECC urged the Government to pay the National Food Buffer Stock Company Limited to enable remedy the dire food shortages in the schools.
The statement expressed concerned about the seemingly firefighting approach to dealing with issues concerning the Free Senior High School, which undermined the implementation of the policy.
The Upper West Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools in a release stated that “if sufficient money and food are not received in the schools by Friday, July 15, 2022, they will be forced to tell parents and guardians to either feed their wards or come for them since it will be impossible to continue feeding them with nothing.”
GNA