HEADMASTERS of government -assisted senior high schools in the Eastern Region have appealed to the government to increase the feeding fee by June 14, this year, or they will be compelled to either send all boarding students home or let them buy their own food.
At an emergency meeting in Koforidua, the authorities said the current feeding fee of 80Gp per student per day which was fixed in 2006 was woefully inadequate, due to the rapid rise in food prices in the country.
The meeting was attended by executives of the Eastern Regional Chapter of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Schools (CHASS) at the Koforidua Secondary Technical Senior High School.
Briefing the press after the meeting, the Regional Chairman of CHASS, Nana Addo Gyau Akabisa II, said even when the feeding fee of a student per day was fixed at 80Gp three years ago, the schools found it difficult to feed the boarders.
Nana Akabisa who is also the Headmaster of Benkum Senior High School at Larteh, said due to the increase in prices of foodstuffs, it had become necessary that the 80Gp feeding fee per student should be periodically reviewed but that was not done, putting the heads of the schools in a very difficult situation.
“How can you feed students who are young adults with 80Gp per day at this time when prices of foodstuffs have increased tremendously and since we cannot starve them, the best options are to send them home or let them feed themselves while in school”, he said.
The Regional Chairman further stated that apart from the low feeding fee, the government had since last year only paid half of the fees it absorbed in respect of areas such as postal services, practical science, sports and maintenance as a result of which creditors have been harassing the headmasters.
CHASS, has therefore called on the government to as early as possible make funds available for such services to enable the headmasters to discharge their duties effectively.
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