As part of the reforms the next NDC government intends to bring into the education sector, John Mahama has promised to decentralise the implementation of the School Feeding programme for the schools to take the responsibility of feeding the children themselves.
He says decentralising the programme will boost the local economy since the schools will be making the food purchases from their communities, aside from increasing the nutritional value of the food being served the pupils.
John Mahama made the statement at a consultative meeting with leadership of three pre-tertiary teacher unions Friday April 19, 2024, as part of his ‘Building Ghana Tour.’
“We will decentralise the School Feeding programme and return the responsibility for feeding the students to the schools. This will not only boost the local economy because the schools will buy the foods locally, but it will also ensure that the students receive more nutritious foods than they currently receive today,” he stated.
He also expressed his intentions to streamlining TVET and STEM educations into mainstream education by making use of the science resource centres in the various senior high schools as well as the science labs in the Community Day SHSs otherwise known as ‘E-blocks’.
John Mahama noted that the next NDC administration will move the Free SHS secretariat to the education directorates to supervise them.
“We are going to mainstream TVET and STEM into all secondary schools. We don’t believe that TVET and STEM should be stand alone in special secondary schools. In this regard we’ll revamp the science resource centres in order that clusters of schools can use those resource centres.
“The imperative of the Free SHS Secretariat being supervised by the Education Directorate is our considered view. The education service which is an implementation agency has the capacity to implement the free shs policy. The NDC will therefore integrate the free shs secretariat into the education service directorate and not have them exist as separate entities.” he assured during his meeting with National Association of Graduate Teachers, Coalition of Concerned Teachers-Ghana and the Ghana National Association of Teachers.
