Teacher unions declare indefinite strike
President makes appeal to striking teacher unions
Parents of Senior High School students in the Upper West Region have been directed to provide sugar and other food items for their wards, A1radio.com has reported.
This according to regional Conference of Assisted Heads of Schools is due to food supply challenges which has led to shortage in Senior High Schools across the region.
“At a meeting of the Upper West Regional CHASS on the 6th July, 2022 at Queen of Peace Senior High School, the Food and Money Situation in the schools was thoroughly discussed. It came out that the Food suppliers contracted by Buffer Stock Company and those local suppliers contacted to help out are all refusing to supply due to non-payment of outstanding monies owed for food supplied to the schools. This has led to serious food shortages in all the schools in the region. In fact, an assessment of the situation indicated that most schools cannot go beyond one week if nothing urgent is done about it.
“Also the way that money is trickling into the schools is making it very difficult to run the schools. In view of these challenges, it was resolved that: All Schools will feed students with only whatever is available in the school food stores and students will be asked to bring their own sugar and other items to the dining hall,” the Upper West CHASS said in statement sighted by GhanaWeb.
According to the Conference, parents will be asked to take full responsibility for the feeding of their wards if nothing is done to arrest the current situation.
“If sufficient money and food is not received in the schools by Friday, 15th July, 2022, we will be compelled to tell parents and guardians to either feed their wards or come for them since it will be impossible to continue to feed them with nothing.”
“Candidates writing the WASSCE will be compelled to feed themselves or come from home to write the exams,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, a strike action declared by four teacher unions over conditions of service has seen the withdrawal of services by teaching and non-teaching staff in the various public pre-tertiary schools across the country.
This comes at a time when final year Senior High School students are preparing for their West African Secondary School Certificate Examination.
President Akufo-Addo, speaking at an event to mark the 2020 Eid-Ul-Adha on Saturday July 9, 2022, appealed to the unions to call off the strike while they negotiate with government.
GA/WA
File photo: Schools in the Upper West will run out of food for students by July 15