The presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Mahama says the feeding of students under the free Senior High School (SHS) policy will be the responsibility of the management of schools in the next NDC government.
According to him, grants for the purchase of food items will be disbursed to the heads of the schools to take up the responsibility.
Addressing a rally at Navrongo in the Upper East Region, John Mahama assured that the NDC will improve the quality of food offered to students if voted for in the elections.
“We will improve the quality of food in our schools. The quality of foods in our schools have deteriorated and if you ask any of the students, they will tell you. This is because the NPP has centralized the acquisition of foodstuff for the schools. The acquisition and procurement of foods must be the responsibility of the headmasters and so the feeding grants must be given to the headmasters, and they will procure the food from the Buffer Stock Company at a good price. So the NDC is going to restore the responsibility of the feeding of the students to the headmasters and their bursars”.
“I know a headmaster who is a friend, and he told me that there are times they do not receive their food from the Buffer Stock, and so he has to take money out of his pocket or go and borrow money to be able to feed the students. So we are going to give the headmasters the feeding grants so that they can give the students quality food”, Mahama added.
In furtherance, John Dramani Mahama reiterated his support for the free SHS policy maintaining that he will not abolish it if he comes to power.
The former President explained that he has never been against the policy although the current mode of implementation has consistently created problems for both students and their parents.
While admitting that free SHS is here to stay and cannot be reversed by any government, John Mahama said that a future NDC government will hold stakeholder consultations to address the bottlenecks confronting the smooth implementation of the policy.