How John Mahama starved Senior High Schools in the North

A major characteristic of the erstwhile John Mahama government in the education sector was his consistent refusal to pay feeding grants of students in senior high schools (SHSs) in the north.

Before the Akufo-Addo government introduced Free SHS in 2017, students in SHSs in northern Ghana were fed through the feeding grant policy.

However, the policy suffered severe challenges under the Mahama government.

Challenges
Feeding grants were constantly in arrears, and in one instance, no payment was made for 14 continuous months, bringing untold hardships to students.

Schools were closed as appeals by school authorities and parents to government to pay the feeding grants fell on deaf ears.

The Thunder publishes some of the despicable stories about Mr Mahama’s abysmal handling of feeding grants for northern schools, which exposed him to public ridicule.

Partial re-opening
In January, 2014, the state-owned Daily Graphic reported that all the 83 SHSs in the three regions of northern Ghana could only partially re-open by admitting only final-year students. “The inability of the SHSs to admit all students on the re-opening day is as a result of the non-payment of two terms feeding subsidies owed them by the government,” the paper stated.

The affected schools included, 44 in the Northern Region, 23 in the Upper East Region and 16 in the Upper West Region.

The newspaper mentioned the then Northern Regional Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), Alhaji Tahiru Abdul-Rahmen Mahama as saying that the schools were unable to admit both the form one and form two students due to the lack of funds to cater for their feeding.

Outstanding debts
Also on December 31 , 2016 graphiconline carried a story that government-assisted SHSs in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions were struggling to re-open for the second term of the 2016/2017 academic year as a result of outstanding debts owed food suppliers.

According to the story, the schools were indebted to food suppliers for three terms, which were, two terms of the 2015/2016 academic year and the first term of the 2016/2017 academic year.

The Northern Regional Director of Education, Alhaji Mohammed Haroon, who confirmed to the Daily Graphic that the government was in arrears of the feeding grant, was reacting to an appeal by the Northern Regional branch of the parent-teacher association (PTA) to the Mahama government to expedite action on the payment of arrears of feeding grants to government assisted schools in the three regions of the north.

Closure of schools
Also on June 20, 2016, kasapafmonline.com reported that several SHSs in the three regions of the north remained closed following the delay by the Mahama government in releasing their feeding grants.

“Government is yet to pay feeding grant for the 2015/2016 academic year. Teachers in the affected schools have lamented over the situation saying they are losing lots of contact hours as the students remain at home while schools are shut for more than a week. Some of the head teachers say they can no longer feed the students due to government’s indebtedness,” the paper reported.