Hunger forcing our children to steal – Council of PTAs react to food shortage

The National Council of Parent Teachers Association has asked the government to close down schools if it cannot secure funds for suppliers to distribute food to the various senior high schools.

“There is still hunger in our schools which is forcing some of the students to engage in stealing,” Raphael Gapson, the acting General Secretary of the Council revealed after their monitoring.

He said his executives in the 16 regions had assessed the situation and realised that there were no foods in most of the schools.

“The children are given tea without bread,” he stated while warning that schools may shut down soon due to government’s inability to provide foods pay suppliers of food to senior high schools across the country.

Mr Gapson who lamented the government’s failure to engage parents over the worrying situation revealed that students were still hungry across various SHSs.

The situation has forced some final-year students of some senior high schools in the Ashanti Region to skip school although their teachers are back from the nationwide teacher union strike.

At the Kumasi Senior High Technical School, students numbering over three hundred are yet to report to school after the Eid-break with a majority of the absentees being final year students.

The government reportedly owes the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NFBSC) about GH₵340 million which has been attributed to the shortage of foods in the schools.

Mr Gapson said the government ought to meet parents and seek their suggestions to review how food is supplied to the students.

“When the headmasters were invited by the Buffer Stock Company, they got there to realise that there were no foods there…The are no foods in the various senior high schools and the children are still hungry,” Mr Gapson said in an interview with Myxyzonline.com.

He also said the system the government was using to manage the schools has prevented headteachers from speaking publicly, stressing that it has compounded the situation.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Regional Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) has canceled the upcoming Super Zonal sports festival for second-cycle schools due to food shortage.

At an emergency meeting with all Zonal Chairpersons in Koforidua, the leadership of CHASS directed zonal heads to dismiss all athletes who were being camped for the sports festival slated for July 24, 2022.