The Director General of Ghana Education Service (GES) Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa has denied food shortage claims in Senior High Schools by Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT).
On Tuesday August 31, 2021, the General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Thomas Musah, has admitted in an interview that some Senior High Schools (SHSs) in the country have been hit with food shortages.
These SHSs he claimed are mostly found in the Eastern, Ashanti, Northern, and Volta regions.
According to him, the situation, if not remedied, could affect the health of the students in the affected schools, adding that “We need to do something to help our children to ensure that these children pass and pass well.”
Mr. Musah was also concerned about how the students are fed saying “the conditions under which our children are learning is not the best”.
For him, the posture taken by some duty bearers that there is not food shortages affecting schools in the country will not help to address the situation, and that the issue needed to be addressed urgently.
But the Director General of GES in his response said reports available to him do not support the claims being made by the GNAT general secretary.
“We may have a school or two facing some delay in supply but that cannot mean there is food shortage in SHS in general. As far as our reports go, we do not have food shortage” Prof. Opoku-Amankwa stressed.
He disclosed that his office has been meeting with Ghana Buffer Stock to ensure that the usual delays and other bottlenecks are dealt with, so as to allow the supply to run smoothly.
Responding to another claim made by GNAT that the food shortage will have negative impact on the outcome of final year students’ examination, Prof. Opoku-Amankwa discounted the claim and assured parents that there are a lot of investment made by government to ensure that “our students pass and pass well, they won’t fail”.
“Leave the pessimists alone, we are doing all we can to help our students sit for the exams and come out well. There are a lot of investments going into ensuring they pass”.
The current situation let me assure parents and general public that we are ensuring that their wards are safe, he concluded.
