Settle all arrears due School Feeding Caterers – Govt urged

The Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC) has urged the Government to expedite action on settling all arrears due caterers under the Ghana School Feeding programme.

The Coalition said the strike by the caterers had placed the school management and the Ghanaian children in an awkward position that had the potential to negatively impact on school enrolment.

That, the Coalition said would defeat the main purpose of access to education, which was the right of the Ghanaian child.

This was in a statement signed by Mr Joseph Atsu Homadzi, the National Chairman, GNECC, and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.

The statement encouraged the caterers to dialogue with the duty bearers to address the situation.

It said GNECC had noted the positive results of the school feeding programme at the pre-tertiary education level over the years, and that if the Government did not take urgent responsibility for rectifying the current situation, the students would continue to suffer.

Data shows that school enrolments have increased since the launch of the School Feeding initiative in 2005.

The pilot programme recorded an impressive increase in enrolment by about 14.5 per cent.

At the kindergarten level, enrolment went up from about 500,000 students in 2004-2005 to more than 800,000 in 2005-2006, an increase of 67 per cent.

During the same period, the primary net enrolment rate increased from 59.1 per cent to 68.8 per cent, while net enrolment at the Junior High School level increased from 31.6 per cent to 41.6 per cent.

The Ghana School Feeding Programme started in 2005 as an initiative of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program Pillar three, which seeks to enhance food security and reduce hunger in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals on hunger, poverty and malnutrition.

Source: NewsGhan