Boarding schools in North can't re-open

Many Senior Secondary Schools with boarding facilities in the three northern regions cannot reopen for the third term of the academic year due to the lack of funds to feed the students.

The headmasters have therefore placed notices of indefinite closure of the schools which should have re-opened yesterday September 11.

Alhaji Amadu Belko, Northern Regional Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools(CHASS) told the Ghana News Agency in Tamale that the schools never received their feeding funds for the first and second terms from the Scholarships Secretariat. He said they have no option than to defer the reopening since they were only able to cope with the situation in the first term from the academic fees paid by the first year students and also had to credit food stuffs to feed the students.

Alhaji Belko who is also the Headmaster of Ghana Secondary School, Tamale, said presently most of the schools owe food contractors between one hundred and fifty and two hundred million cedis for food-stuff bought on credit. He urged the Scholarships Secretariat to speed up with the release of the differences of the first two terms and the third term's funds for early re-opening of the schools. Alhaji Belko expressed concern about the plight of the second year students who are expected to register by the end of the year and to write their final year exams in June next year.

Mr. Polina Saaka, Head Master of Tamale Secondary School said since January, the school had received only one-third of the expected grant have always been given one third of the expected feeding grant even though there had been an increment from two thousand to three thousand cedis per student per day. He said the Northern Regional Co-ordinating Council made a stop gap approach by making the various District Assemblies support the schools with ten million cedis each for them to go through the last term. Mr. Saaka said the the Minister of Education and the Scholarships Secretariat are all aware of the situation, adding that it is unfortunate there had not been any favourable reforms so far.