GOVT URGED TO RELEASE SCHOOL FEEDING GRANT (PAGE 11)

Story: George Folley Quaye, Wa

THE Upper West Regional Director of Education, Mr Cletus Paga, has made a passionate appeal to the government to release the school feeding grant to senior high schools in the three northern regions.
He said further delays in the release of the grant would seriously jeopardise the future of students, who were currently at home.
Mr Paga made the call at the regional education sector’s annual review meeting at Wa.
He noted that the development gap between northern and southern Ghana would further widen, if students of second-cycle institutions in northern Ghana, were made to stay at home while their counterparts in the southern sector were busily learning.
The regional director acknowledged the contribution of UNICEF and the Rural Aid Action Programme (RAAP), a non- governmental organisation based in the Upper West Region.
He said the provision of bicycles to selected girls in schools in the region, had facilitated their movement to school.
The Upper West Regional Minister, Mr George Hickah Benson, was not happy about the shortage of teachers in the region.
He, therefore, called on the regional directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to strategise in order to attract more teachers to the region.
He lamented on the low number of teachers with study leave in the region and called for an increase in the quota to enable more teachers to continue their education.
He cautioned teachers who were involved in active politics in their schools to desist from such acts.