About 79 second cycle institutions in the three regions of the north risk closure if government fails to defray the accumulated debt associated with the Capitation Grant Programme.
The affected Senior High Schools comprise 35 in the Northern, 18 in the Upper West and 26 in the Upper East Regions.
Reports suggest that food suppliers to the affected schools have withdrawn their services awaiting government’s swift response.
It is against this backdrop, the Coalition of Parent Teacher Associations of second cycle institutions in the three regions of the north has served notice of embarking on series of demonstrations against government.
This is intended to mount pressure on government to defray the accumulated debt.
At a news conference in Tamale, Tamale Metro Secretary of the Coalition of Parent Teacher Associations, Ouedrago Issac maintained that no amount of persuasion will stop the planned demonstrations unless government defrayed the accumulated debt.
He accused government of its ineptitude towards finding an antidote to the problem.
He revealed that government upon pressure paid only 50% of the piled debt for the third term of the 2013/14 academic season.
This, according to Ouedrago Issac irritated the food suppliers to withdraw their services.
He said investigations by the Regional Network of Parent Teachers Association of Senior High Schools with support from a local PTA network called Tampata in collaboration with a local Non Governmental Organization, Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development (CALID) uncovered that government’s debt was alarming.
The findings proved that heads of the affected schools were at the verge of shutting down the insntitutions.
Ouedrago Issac linked poverty and the under-development of the three regions of the north to the falling standard of education.
He thus impressed upon government to bridge the yawning developmental disparities between the north and the south using education as the panacea.
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By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana