By Hajia Safia Mohammed
The National Coordinator for the Ghana School Feeding Programme
We view school meals as a critical social safety net providing hope to many children in public primary schools in Ghana. Since the launch of this programme in 2005, the government has continuously affirmed commitment to continue exploring new ways of improving school meals. We are providing one hot nutritious meal in school on each day, ensuring the good health of our students and improving their capacity to learn. This is of utmost importance to us as a nation because the future of this country lies in the hands of our children.
Despite economic constraints, the government has increased the school meals grant from 0.80 GHS (USD 0.056) in 2016 to 1.50 GHS (USD 0.072) in 2023. We are currently reaching 3.8 million children in 11,000 schools and looking at raising additional funds to cover all 5.1 million students learning in Ghana’s 16 regions. This is a key priority for the government because we know how important the meals are to the 50 percent of the 3.8 million children coming to school hungry every morning, according to the Cost-Benefit Analysis of 2018. Our intervention to supporting children from disadvantaged families, starts with ensuring they have something to eat at school so that they can focus on their learning and stay in school. We know education is an effective weapon to fight intergenerational poverty and ensure Ghana has the skills needed to continue developing our country.
We are taking various steps to raise enough resources to extend the national programme and improve its quality. It is the main reason we joined the School Meals Coalition in January this year, to be able to connect with other countries and partners at global level and learn how others have come up with successful programmes. At national level we have been able to bring together different government ministries, departments, municipalities, and development partners in support of school meals. We are also investing in expanding the production of food varieties that can be supplied in schools. This is creating opportunities to economically empower smallholder farmers collaborating with the government and some of our partners.
The school meals programme has also proved to be a critical employer of women. Currently over 33,000 women are working as cooks, out of which 80 percent are based in the rural areas. Some of these women had no professional training in catering and meal planning when we engaged them, and this necessitated partnerships in providing trainings to improve their capacity to deliver quality meals and ensure they observe hygiene standards.
We are also enhancing the transparency and efficiency of the programme by introducing reforms and innovations such as the implementation of the Management Information System (MIS). This is helping us to streamline operations, including managing and monitoring caterers’ data and activities. In 2022, we also digitalized the monitoring tools using tablets in a pilot project targeting 256 schools. This paperless transition has resulted in accurate real-time data to promote swift decision-making. In view of the financial constraints, when we put in place measures that can improve accuracy and timely delivery of services, we are able to achieve more from our limited resources.