The Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS) has encouraged parents to provide their children with enough provisions for school.
According to the conference, this is to help with the feeding challenges in SHSs.
CHASS had requested the Ministry of Education to promptly disburse pending funds for the uninterrupted functioning of SHSs across the country, warning that unresolved financial shortfalls could disrupt academic activities and compromise student welfare.
A communiqué signed by CHASS National Secretary, Primus Baro, highlighted the financial challenges faced by schools, which persist despite previous communications and verbal assurances from the Minister of Education during a Zoom meeting on December 18, 2024, and appealed for an extension of the January 3, 2025 reopening date.
However, the Ghana Education Service (GES) later announced that it was in discussions with the Ministry of Education to expedite the resolution of issues brought forth by the leadership of CHASS and insisted that students were expected to report back to school on January 3, 2025.
Primus Baro, National Secretary of CHASS, told JoyNews in an interview on Wednesday, January 8, that the situation had heightened and the help of parents was needed.
He stressed that food supplies were not reaching the schools and in some cases, they were relying on the old practice of sending students what they had.
“I encourage parents, and I have already advised my PTA to this effect, to let their children bring food like gari, shito, and sugar to supplement whatever the school provides. I urge parents across the country, as the food situation has still not improved in the past two and three years, and it has worsened at this particular time.
“Food supplies are not reaching the schools. In places like the Upper West, Upper East, and Northern regions, apart from rice, the schools have no stable food supplies. Oil is completely unavailable. For example, in my school, I currently don’t have a single drop of oil, so my matron has been using margarine to replace oil for cooking. I don’t have maize or beans—only rice and some gari.
“We are still relying on the old practices of sending students with what they have, and that’s the only reason we allowed the students to return. Otherwise, the situation is still far from ideal,” Baro stated.
