Extend school feeding plan to private schools

Page 28
1-09-08

THE Association of Private Schools in the Central Region (APS-CR) has called for an extension of the school feeding programme to some private schools in the country.
“We the members of the APS-CR acknowledge the fact that the Ghana School Feeding Programme has had its own challenges since its inception, but with those challenges came the successes.
“We, therefore, deem it fit to advocate that the government includes some private schools in the programme even if on a pilot basis so that we can collectively reap the social benefits, which would go a long way to improve our effort of providing quality education,” it said.
The President of the association, Mr John Ibrahim Sesay, made the call at a media interaction at Kasoa in the Central Region on Wednesday.
He said as an association of private schools in the Central Region, its objective was to contribute to the human development of the nation by providing sound basic school education to children.
Education, he said, was the cornerstone of human capital and formed the basis of an individual’s economic productivity, adding that members saw the school feeding programme and Capitation Grant as a sure way to help reduce poverty and improve the level of education.
Mr Sesay said there was enough evidence to confirm that the school feeding programme had a positive impact on beneficiary children as far as nutritional improvement was concerned.
“There is more than enough evidence to prove that children who are hungry or chronically malnourished are less able to learn compared to healthy children, regardless of their growing environment,” he stated.
In addressing the benefits of the programme, he said one could not overlook the impact on enrolment and attendance, and that statistics from beneficiary schools in the country suggested that the programme had increased the general attendance by 30 per cent.
“It might interest us all to know some of the challenges that private schools in urban areas and rural areas in Ghana face, I believe that when these challenges are told as they are, the call to include some private schools in the Ghana School Feeding Programme will be more understandable,” he said.
Mr Sesay indicated that even if the government included some private schools in the programme, it would be laudable, adding that “we also see this as an opportunity to firmly establish a public and private sector collaboration”.