The nationwide strike by the four educational sector unions which resulted in cooks laying down their tools, has compelled students to assume cooking roles in most of the Senior High/Technical Schools in the Upper East Region.
The unions are Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Coalition of Concern Teachers (CCT – Ghana) and the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU).
Checks by the Ghanaian Times in some schools in the Bolgatanga Municipality, Bolgatanga East and Talensidistricts, revealed that students, led by their dining hall prefects, had taken over the responsibility of cooking, since all the cooks and other non-teaching staff members are strongly backing their various teachers and education workers unions and have as such laid down their tools.
All, but a few final year students have gone home following the strike.
The schools visited included the Zamse Senior High/Technical School (ZAMSTECH), Bolgatanga Senior High School (BIGBOSS) and Zuarungu Senior High School (ZUSS), where students were busy preparing the evening meal on Wednesday.
At ZAMSTECH, the Dining Hall Prefect, Solomon Akapanga, had drawn up a duty roster for his fellow final-year students, to help in the kitchen business.
He prayed that government and the four teacher unions would soon break the deadlock to enable the teachers and workers to return to relieve them of the Herculean task they were confronted with.
“See, we have abandoned our books, and we are here in the kitchen cooking. This is not our job, but man must survive. We are suffering too much, and it is not good.
“Government has to do something about the teachers’ demand so they call off the strike,” the Dining Hall Prefect appealed to government.
A final year student and Student Representative Council (SRC) President of the school, Mr Isaac Anayere, said students were confronted with double dilemma-teachers’ strike and food shortage.
According to him, students were already braving the odds as they tried coping with the phenomenon of inadequate food supply, “and our teachers too have vacated the classrooms. This will definitely affect us in our West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).”
He impressed upon government to grant teachers and other education workers’ request for Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) to cushion them to help ameliorate the harsh economic situation.
On the issue of food shortage in the school, the SRC president indicated that they were not fed regularly, let alone getting nutritious meals, and asked the government to intervene to arrest the situation as soon as possible.
The Parent Teachers Association (PTA) Chairman for ZAMSTECH, Vincent Atoore, when contacted, confirmed there was food shortage in the school, but was quick to add that the situation was not peculiar to ZAMSTECH.
He described as worrying and terrible the meals that were being prepared for students in the various Senior High Schools (SHSs), putting the blame on the doorstep of the Ministry of Education and government’s decision to scrap the payment of PTA dues.
In his view, the PTA dues were used as backup intervention any time government was finding it difficult to release funds for food supply in the various schools, “but now, government has disbanded the payment of dues, and it is affecting the students terribly.”
Mr Atoore called on government to take proper steps to address the challenge or close down the schools to avert starvation of the students.
It would be recalled that the Upper East Chapter of NAGRAT, led by its Chairman, John Akunzebe, held a news conference here in Bolgatanga to declare their decision in support of the “COLA strike” embarked upon by members of the association nationwide.
He said, “Prices of fuel, goods and services continue to rise by the day; the introduction of new taxes have worsened the already bad situation, yet the teacher’s salary remains the same. Between January and now, fuel prices have increased by over 50 percent,” he lamented.
He emphasised that prices of basic food and other commodities had increased astronomically in the region, hence the need for government to act fast to mitigate their woes.
Source: FRANCIS DABRE DABANG || Ghanaian Times, BOLGATANGA