The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) would be extended to Junior High School (JHS) within the next two years, a government official said on Wednesday.
Mr. Joseph Yieleh Chireh, Minister of Local and Rural Development, said it had come to the notice of the coordinators of the GSFP that some primary school pupils were unwilling to move on to JHS because moving on meant no more feeding for them.
"Government's policy for the programme is therefore to ensure that from next year it will
shift from the pilot to mainstream stage to ensure that it is extended to benefit more schools in poor areas, particularly the rural communities."
"We have targeted that in the next two years, the GSFP should benefit pupils at the JHS
level to ensure that pupils from the primary level can comfortably move on to JHS,particularly in the poorest of the poor areas where such pupils are likely to drop out of school without such motivations," he said.
Mr. Yieleh Chireh was speaking at the opening of a two-day conference on the GSFP
jointly organised by the GSFP Secretariat and their development partners, including the
World Bank, World Food Programme, Royal Netherlands Embassy, UN Children's Fund
(UNICEF), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and US Agency for International Development (USAID).
The GSFP, initiated by the NPP administration on pilot basis, has benefited at least 660,000 primary school pupils in schools in selected poor communities, particularly in the
three northern regions.
The testimony about the programme is that since it started, school dropout rates in the
selected school has dropped drastically and enrolment has also increased while local farmers
have benefited from the purchase of their produce and local caterers have also benefited from
jobs.
On coming to office in January this year, the NDC administration pledged to continue the
programme and mainstream it to benefit all primary schools in deprived areas, and obviously
more communities in terms of job creation and income generation for farmers.
Mr. Yieleh Chireh said in the 2009 budget, government voted GH¢50 million for the GSFP, but no specific amount was voted for it in the 2010 budget read last month.
He said the reason was that government intended to work together with the development
partners to tidy up the programme and make it more sustainable.
"We want to work with all the partners, hear the experts and learn from the best practices
in order to avoid the challenges of the pilot stage as we move forward to the mainstream level.
"For instance, we do not believe that all schools at the basic level should benefit from the
GSFP programme. Some of them are not in deprived areas and not all parents will like their children to eat the food served by the GSFP any way."
The minister argued that the pilot stage lost its focus as a lot of deprived areas were left out while some "not too deprived areas" benefited.
Mr Yieleh Chireh said steps were also being put in place to restore the ownership of the
programme to the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, who were to own and run it.
He, however, cautioned that much as the intention of the programme was to encourage
school attendance, government had no intention to convert schools from learning institutions into feeding grounds.
Mr. Yieleh Chireh assured the development partners of accountability in the administration
of the programme and said government was ready to welcome criticisms that would help to make the programme succeed.
Ms Sandra Bodowa, an 11- year-old pupil of Ashongman D. A. Primary School, appealed
to the President, on behalf of the three million primary school pupils in Ghana, to extend the
programme nationwide.
"We are also waiting for the fulfilment of President John Evans Atta Mills' promise of
cocoa and fruits," she said.
Young Sandra thrilled everybody when she noted that lots of pupils from very poor homes
went to school because of the food served and most of them ended up becoming great people in life, adding "what would have become of those great people if food had not been served in their schools."
A representative of the World Bank (WB) said the bank and the DFID were preparing a Social Protection Programme (SPP) worth $40million, through which the GSFP and other social safety net programmes would be supported in a more sustainable way.
She assured the minister that the SPP would focus on the government's policy direction
towards the most deprived areas.
Representatives of other development partners took turns to pledge their continued support for the programme in the coming years.
The Royal Netherlands Embassy's core support officially ends next year, but the representative said the embassy would vote more support for the programme.