Shortage of food tops Jirapa Senior High School PTA meeting agenda

The meeting of Parents-Teachers Association of Jirapa Senior High School on Saturday, January 28, was dominated by the shortage of food items in the second cycle institution.

Being the first of its kind since the outbreak of Covid-19, the PTA meeting saw the election of new executives tasked to spearhead the affairs of the association geard towards improving the quality education of the students in the school.

Speaking at the meeting, headmaster of the school, Mr. Primus Baro, disclosed to parents and guardians about the academic performance of the school.

He touted the performance of the school as one of the best 10 performing Senior High schools in the region.

The headmaster however expressed concern over the high level of indiscipline, bad beviour of some of the students such as stealing, drug abuse, among others.

Touching on what he descibed as a major problem in the school, he mentioned food shortage in the school as a serious challenge needing urgent attention.

He noted the school can only boast of a few food items that were also inadequate in supply which may soon run out.

"The issue of food and money. The single most important challenge of all schools in the country is now food and money. Some of you were here thankfully when your kids were taking their breakfast. I think you saw it. Let me tell you something, I intentionally did this. Anyone who wants to challenge or verify after this, I'll go and open the stores. As it stands here today, I have no single bag of maize."

"In fact, as at yesterday, as at Thursday, I didn't have a single bag of maize. Thankfully this morning, I heard they had just brought maize. I didn't have maize. Zero. Today, I have 31 bags of rice, but you know what? These 31 bags cannot last because every week, we eat 17 bags in a week. So the 31 bags will not even reach if by next two weeks we don't get rice maybe we'll eat koko (porridge) in the morning, TZ in the afternoon and kpoglo (local staple made from beans and cassava flour) in the evening."


"Millet, I don't have any millet. I have only one bag of groundnut today. I have 7 bags of tom brown but they consume 7 bags in a week. So by next week if they need tombrown they won't be any. And sugar, we have only two bags of sugar and they take 4 bags of sugar a week. Oil, I don't have any oil. if by Thursday they don't bring any oil, I don't know what I'll use to cook their food. Mackerel, 2 cartons; milk, zero; sardine, zero; gari, zero; tin tomatoes, zero; palm oil zero; chocolim, zero; bread flour, zero; margarine, zero; soya bean, zero," Mr. Primus lamented.