[ 2017-03-17 ]

No food for 14,782 pupils since Jan 12 – NDC MP raises alarm
A total of 14, 782 pupils in the Ejura-Sekyedumase
Municipal Assembly have since January 12, 2017,
not been fed following the suspension of the
School Feeding Program in the area.

The situation, Kasapafmonline.com understands, has
severely affected attendance of the school pupils
as parents who cannot afford to provide food have
told their children to sit in the house.

On January 12, 2017, the Municipal Coordinating
Director of the Ejura-Sekyedumase Municipal
Assembly wrote to all the caterers providing
services under the School Feeding Program about
the suspension of the program until further notice
and further invited them to a meeting to discuss
the way forward.

This decision by the Assembly, according to
sources, was spurred by the impasse between the
caterers and some youth in the constituency.

The Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Hon.
Muhammad Bawah Braimah, worried about this
phenomenon informed Parliament about the ordeal
children in his constituency are going through and
prayed to the Speaker to appeal to the Minister
for Gender, Children and Social Protection as well
as the Minister for Education to intervene.

“Mr. Speaker, this unfortunate development if
not addressed immediately may defeat the purpose
of the Program and eventually affect quality of
education delivery to the pupils of
Ejura-Sekyedumase. It is important that going
forward all stakeholders work together to free the
Program from politicization which has the
potential to undermine the effective delivery of
the Program.”

“Mr. Speaker, the earlier the School Feeding
Program is resumed, the better for educational
delivery in the constituency because a visit to
the affected schools have shown low attendance at
schools and truancy in the constituency,” he
noted in a statement he delivered on the floor of
the House, Friday.

He also called on the government and all
stakeholders including the Select Committee on
Education to, as a matter of urgency, look into
the matter to get the Ejura-Sekyedumase Municipal
Assembly to resume the operations of the School
Feeding Program.

In 2005, the government realized that public basic
school enrollment, attendance and retention was
very low and this was partly attributed to the
inability of some parents to provide meals to
their wards during school hours.

Government therefore found it necessary to
introduce the School Feeding Program, with support
from the Dutch Government. The Program is an
initiative of the Comprehensive African
Agricultural Development Program, pillar 3 (CAADP)
which seeks to enhance food security and reduce
hunger in line with the MDGs on hunger, poverty
and malnutrition.

Source - kasapaonline.com

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