GES chief calls for balanced diet for students

Sunyani, Aug. 21, GNA – Mrs. Benedicta Naana Biney, the Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), on Tuesday appealed to matrons and caterers to give balanced diet to students to improve on academic performance at senior and junior high schools.

She said most current disturbances in senior high schools were traced to poor feeding.

Mrs. Biney said this when she addressed the opening of the 4th biennial conference and workshop of the National Association of Domestic Bursars and Matrons in Sunyani.

The five-day conference being attended by more than 2,000 bursars and matrons is on the theme “menu and costing-making institutional feeding more economical”.

Mrs. Biney said prices of food and other essential items kept on rising but it was important for the matrons to reflect on ways and means of going round the problem and give nutritious food to the students.

She said adequate intake of food energy and nutrients together with a reduction in the fat and sugar intake was the key to ensuring both current and future good health.

Touching on the theme for the conference, the Director General said for some time now the seriousness with which schools engaged in school farms had slowed down with some grinding to a halt.

Mrs Biney said year in and year out the University of Winneba turns out graduates in agriculture with some scoring first and second classes who go to teach agriculture in schools and yet the organisation of school farms has almost grinded to a halt.

Mrs. Biney reiterated the need for the matrons to explore the possibility of how best farmers in the regions and districts could assist schools to buy farm produce cheaply and regularly.

She expressed concern about unattractive dining halls in senior high schools and appealed to matrons to make special effort to keep dining halls and kitchens neat and tidy at all times.

Mrs. Biney said though the GES recognized the good work matrons were doing in schools to keep children and students healthy, a lot more needed to be done to ensure that the policy of the GES to offer balanced diet to all children and students is achieved.

GNA