“School feeding programme must not be selective” (2/2/09)

Story: Jennifer Dornoo and Gifty Bamfo

THE Leader of a youth advocacy development organisation, the Public Youth and Students Movement of Ghana (PUSMOG), Mr Fredrick Duncan Modzabi, has called on the government to stop the selective free feeding of children in basic schools.
He has rather suggested the building of more public schools for the country, since such schools were inadequate and teaching and learning had to be controlled on a shift basis.
Other public schools were in a state of dilapidation and needed renovation, he noted.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, he described the school feeding programme as a misuse of public funds that could be invested meaningfully in developing infrastructure in the education sector.
He said the inadequacy of public schools in the country put a stress on head teachers to admit more pupils than necessarily required in a class.
That resulted in the running of morning and afternoon shifts in schools making education ineffective in Ghana.
Mr Modzabi said these were the fundamental causes of the decline in standards of education in public schools in the country, since teachers were not able to control and assess the increasing number of pupils in the class.
He said since Ghana attained independence in 1957, little had been done by government to build more schools.
He said some schools currently under the supervision of the government were schools built by religious and international organisations, such as the Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic churches.
Mr Modzabi said the private sector owned and controlled three quarters of educational facilities in the country from crèche to the university level, and most of these were not affordable to the masses.
In public schools in certain parts of the country, two classes had to use one classroom with one chalkboard, while others who had to study under trees and dilapidated structures that were traps, were threatened by the slightest rainfall.
“It will be meaningless for the government to proclaim itself to the international world that it has free education and free feeding while the mass of school children are not receiving quality education,” he added.