Health Officers urged to inspect food sold at schools

Winneba (C/R), April 30, GNA - Environmental health officers should periodically examine food sold at schools to ensure good quality and nutrition for pupils and students at all times, stakeholders of education have urged.

Making the call at separate workshops at Winneba, Senya Beraku and Jei Krodua in the Central Region on Tuesday, the stakeholders comprising teachers, parents, school management and health committees said, the food situation at schools was becoming worrying which called for immediate action. The workshops were organised by the District Education School Sanitation and Hygiene under the Awutu-Effutu-Senya Directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to sensitized stakeholders and the school children on the need to ensure clean environment at schools and communities.

Ms Gifty Brebu of the District School Health Education Programme (SHEP), encouraged stakeholders to practice good sanitation and hygiene in their communities and at their workplaces. She said the activities of SHEP among others, was to promote good health and a healthy environment for children and also for effective teaching and learning.

Ms Brebu stressed the need for school children to be provided with potable drinking water and taught how to maintain and store it. She advised the children to ensure regular hand washing with soap before eating and after visiting the washroom (toilet). Ms Brebu appealed to school authorities to maintain a clean urinals and toilet facilities at their schools, since indiscriminate defecation nearby bushes could caused outbreak of diseases.