The Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS) recommended parents to supply adequate school supplies for their children.
As per the conference, this will assist in addressing the feeding issues in SHSs.
Unresolved financial shortages could disrupt academic activities and jeopardize the welfare of students, therefore CHASS had asked the Ministry of Education to swiftly disburse pending monies for the continuous operation of SHSs nationwide.
The CHASS National Secretary, Primus Baro, signed a statement highlighting the financial difficulties schools face, which continue despite prior correspondence and verbal promises from the Minister of Education during a Zoom meeting on December 18, 2024. The statement also called for an extension of the reopening date of January 3, 2025.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) then asserted that children were anticipated to return to school on January 3, 2025, and stated that it was in talks with the Ministry of Education to resolve the issues raised by the CHASS leadership as quickly as possible.
CHASS National Secretary Primus Baro told JoyNews in an interview on Wednesday, January 8, that the issue had escalated and that parents needed to intervene.
He emphasized that food supplies were not getting to the schools and that, in certain situations, they were still sending children what they had.
“I encourage parents, and I have already advised my PTA to this effect, to let their children bring food like gari, shito, and sugar to supplement whatever the school provides. I urge parents across the country, as the food situation has still not improved in the past two and three years, and it has worsened at this particular time.
“Food supplies are not reaching the schools. In places like the Upper West, Upper East, and Northern regions, apart from rice, the schools have no stable food supplies. Oil is completely unavailable. For example, in my school, I currently don’t have a single drop of oil, so my matron has been using margarine to replace oil for cooking. I don’t have maize or beans—only rice and some gari.
“We are still relying on the old practices of sending students with what they have, and that’s the only reason we allowed the students to return. Otherwise, the situation is still far from ideal,” Baro stated.
