The four educational sector unions’ nationwide strike which led cooks to put down their tools in most Senior High/Technical Schools in the Upper East Region, has forced students to cook for themselves
The unions are the Teachers and Educational Workers Union, the Coalition of Concern Teachers (CCT – Ghana), the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), and the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) (TEWU).
According to investigations conducted by the Ghanaian Times in some schools in the Bolgatanga Municipality, Bolgatanga East, and Talensidistricts, students, under the leadership of their dining hall prefects, have taken over the cooking duties because all the cooks and other non-teaching staff members are strongly supporting their various teachers’ and education workers unions and have as a result put down their tools.
After the walkout, all but a few final-year students returned home.
The schools visited on Wednesday included Zuarungu Senior High School (ZUSS), Bolgatanga Senior High School (BIGBOSS), and Zamse Senior High/Technical School (ZAMSTECH), where students were hard at work preparing the evening meal.
At ZAMSTECH, Solomon Akapanga, the dining hall prefect, had created a duty schedule for his fellow final-year students to assist in the kitchen operations.
He prayed that the four teacher unions and the government would soon find a solution to the impasse so that the teachers and workers could return and relieve them of the onerous duty they were facing.
“As you can see, we’ve put down our books and are now in the kitchen preparing food. Although man must survive, this is not our responsibility. We are suffering excessively, which is not good.
The Dining Hall Prefect pleaded with the government to address the teachers’ demand so they would end their strike.
Mr Isaac Anayere, a final-year student and president of the school’s Student Representative Council (SRC), claimed that the teachers’ strike and the lack of food presented pupils with a double challenge.
He claimed that kids were already overcoming obstacles as they attempted to deal with the phenomena of insufficient food supply, and that “even our teachers had left the classrooms.” Our performance in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) will undoubtedly be impacted by this.
He persuaded the government to grant Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) requests from teachers and other education professionals in order to cushion them from the challenging economic climate.
The SRC president addressed the issue of food scarcity in the school and said that students were not receiving regular meals, let alone nourishing ones. He urged the government to step in and reverse the situation as quickly as possible.
When contacted, Vincent Atoore, the PTA Chairman at ZAMSTECH, acknowledged that there was a food deficit at the school but quickly added that it was not unique to ZAMSTECH.
He blamed the Ministry of Education and the government’s decision to cease the payment of PTA dues for the lunches that were being prepared for kids at the various Senior High Schools (SHSs), describing them as worrisome and dreadful.
According to him, PTA dues were utilized as a backup plan whenever the government was having trouble releasing money for food supplies in the various schools. However, “the government has abolished the payment of dues, and it is horribly harming the pupils,” he said.
Mr Atoore urged the government to take appropriate action to address the issue or to close the schools in order to prevent student malnutrition.
You may remember that the Upper East Chapter of NAGRAT, led by its Chairman, John Akunzebe, held a press conference here in Bolgatanga to announce their intention to support the “COLA strike” that association members around the country had begun.
He stated, “While the cost of living continues to climb daily and additional taxes have made an already dire situation worse, the teacher’s pay stays static. Fuel costs have jumped by more than 50% since January, he bemoaned.
He emphasized that the region’s basic food and other commodity prices had soared astronomically, necessitating immediate government action to ameliorate their plight.