Editorial: The Decentralised SHS Feeding Policy Must Work!

According to a graphiconline report, the minister for Education, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, has warned heads of Senior High Schools that the government will not hesitate to scrap the decentralised feeding policy if students continue to receive poor-quality meals. He issued the warning during the inauguration of the new Governing Council of the Ghana Education Service (GES) on Friday, May 2, 2025.

Mr Iddrisu expressed concern over reports of sub-standard food and delays in supply, saying the feeding arrangement must reflect value for money and meet basic nutritional standards. “We are not satisfied with the quality of the food that has been supplied, and we are not satisfied even with the timely distribution of the food,” he said. “I will not hesitate to reverse that policy decision, even though it was a manifesto pledge, if that is what it takes to ensure that the right quality and quantities of food are provided.”

The decentralised feeding system allows heads of schools to receive direct grants to buy food locally, replacing the previous centralised model, under which the National Food Buffer Stock Company supplied food to schools nationwide.

The minister for Education tasked the GES Council, chaired by Professor Mawutor Avoke, to monitor the policy closely and also urged school authorities to conduct regular internal audits and encouraged surprise inspections by national officers.

Education is not merely about textbooks and classrooms. It is also about the environment in which students live and learn and nothing defines that environment more than the food they eat. That is why the stern warning issued by the minister for Education, regarding the quality of meals under the decentralised school feeding policy, should not only jolt stakeholders into action but also trigger a comprehensive re-evaluation of how we prioritise the welfare of Ghana’s Senior High School (SHS) students.

Reports of inedible meals, malnutrition, and delayed supplies are not just administrative lapses they are direct attacks on the dignity and health of our young people. The minister for Education did not mince words about reversing the decentralised feeding system if heads of institutions continue to preside over substandard and poorly managed feeding arrangements.

Let us not forget that this decentralised feeding model was introduced to improve efficiency and food quality. It transferred the power of procurement to individual schools, with the noble intent of empowering heads to source food locally, thereby, reducing dependency on the slow bureaucratic pipeline of the National Food Buffer Stock Company. In theory, this system should bring improvement, but in practice, it appears to be achieving the exact opposite in many schools.

We must ask ourselves: Why is a policy rooted in local empowerment failing so miserably? The answer lies in oversight or the lack of it. Without stringent monitoring mechanisms, clear procurement guidelines and accountability structures, decentralisation quickly becomes a euphemism for chaos. Heads of institutions, overwhelmed or ill-equipped to manage procurement contracts, are vulnerable to exploitation by dishonest suppliers, and in some cases, may find themselves complicit in mismanagement.

Much as The Chronicle recognises the Education Minister’s threat to scrap the policy, on the contrary, we also see it as a necessary wake-up call to the heads of schools and policy makers. Abandoning decentralisation without addressing its root causes risks reverting to a flawed centralised system that has its own record of inefficiencies, delays and food shortages. The goal should not be to pick between two dysfunctional models – it should be to fix the dysfunction itself.

The Education Minister rightly tasked the GES Council, chaired by Prof. Mawutor Avoke, to keep a close eye on the policy’s implementation. The Chronicle also encourages the Ministry of Education and GES to develop a standardised audit framework to guide school heads on procurement procedures, quality control and financial accountability. Surprise inspections and random food sampling should become the norm, not the exception.

It is also time to digitize and centralise monitoring tools. Schools can be required to submit real-time updates on food purchases and meal schedules through an app-based reporting platform. Nutritionists should be engaged to ensure menus meet WHO and Ghana Health Service dietary guidelines. And schools that consistently fail to meet feeding standards should face administrative sanctions, including withdrawal of grants or reassignment of key personnel.

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