The National Council of Parent-Teacher Associations (NCPTAs) has called for the closure of Senior High Schools (SHSs) until issues regarding feeding and other pressing matters are addressed.

According to the NCPTAs, nothing is currently working in the schools after they reopened on Friday, January 3, 2025.

“Nothing is working in the schools. All the assurances from (the previous) government that they would support feeding, provide funds for feeding, and address other issues are not being met,” said Raphael Kofi Gapson, General Secretary of the NCPTAs, in an interview with the Daily Graphic on Thursday, January 10.

Mr. Gapson stated that the association had always believed that schools were not fully prepared to reopen on January 3, 2025, due to constraints with food, funding, and other logistics.

He pointed out that schools lacked food for boarders and did not have the necessary funding to support full operations.

He criticized the previous government for only offering lip service to the free SHS policy, as the challenges continued to escalate and appeared to be getting out of hand.


“You cannot say you are providing feeding or funding support to the schools and then, if they are entitled to 100 grams of food a day to run the school, you send them only 20 or 30 grams a day, and expect the schools to operate perfectly,” Mr. Gapson said.

He further questioned, “How do they run the schools with 30 grams a day when their budget for that day is 100 grams?”

The associations, he said, were ready to support the running of the SHSs and emphasized that in some schools, they were paying additional cooks not employed by the government to cater to the large number of students.

Additionally, he mentioned that they were also paying for security personnel in schools that lacked adequate security. He stated that once the government identified areas where the NCPTAs could support, they would readily offer that assistance.

“We are currently using our PTA funds, which have become the proverbial Akobalm, as a special-purpose vehicle for providing feeding support, extra classes, security and safety in schools, recruitment of kitchen staff, utilities, sports, culture, quizzes, debates, examinations, and various infrastructure projects and logistics,” he explained.

As the January 3, 2025, reopening date for SHSs approached, the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) urged the Ghana Education Service to postpone the reopening until the government settled the outstanding debt for food and operations.

In a statement issued on December 31, 2024, the school heads noted that the government had failed to respond to three appeals since August 2024, regarding payment of arrears for perishables, recurrent fees, and food transportation costs.

The National Secretary of CHASS, Baro Primus, therefore, instructed all regional branches to notify parents of the potential delay through parent associations.

The school heads warned that members who defied the directive would face sanctions for betraying their collective stance.

Mr. Gapson explained that the NCPTAs and other education stakeholders had tried to support schools in various ways.

He stated that when the association raised issues, CHASS had often become a political tool for the government to suppress information.

He alleged that CHASS had stood by the government even when it was clear that things were not being handled properly.

“Finally, CHASS came out with the right verdict by saying that, over two and a half years, it had issues with the government’s lackadaisical attitude toward addressing feeding and funding challenges at the secondary level,” Mr. Gapson said.

He added that these issues had been swept under the carpet, and now heads of schools were calling on the new government to address them.

“We should have closed down the schools and told the students to go back home so that we could take our time, fix the mess, and ensure that the children return to school in a more conducive and serene atmosphere for effective and smooth teaching and learning.”

“The schools are public schools, and they should operate in an open school climate, not a closed one,” he emphasized, noting that, according to his information, nothing was working in the schools.

“We prefer our students to be home and in our custody, so they can be well-fed and safe,” the General Secretary of the NCPTAs added.

He stressed the need for key stakeholders to meet and find solutions to address the crisis.

Even at the basic school level, he mentioned, the capitation grant had been in arrears for over two and a half years.