Students in Wa demonstrate

Wa, May 20, GNA - Students of Senior High Schools in the Wa Municipality on Tuesday demonstrated against the failure by the government to release feeding grants to headmasters to enable them to reopen schools in the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions.

The students in a petition to the government said the Northern Scholarship (feeding grants) was their right and that the government should endeavour to release it on time to enable them to go to school. They said the delay in the release of the grant was affecting them negatively and called on the government to show sympathy to the plight of students in the north.

The students marched through the principal streets of Wa amidst shouting: "We want food, we want food" and converged at the Regional Coordinating Council where Miss Malma M. Mutiatu of Lassia Tuolo Senior High School presented the petition to the Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, Madam Asibi Winfred Dy-Yakah.

Some of the students carried placards, which read: "No feeding grant, no vote", and "We need equal rights and justice, Mr. President". Madam Dy-Yakah told the students that government had released some funds to headmasters to reopen the schools soon.

She said the government was a caring and loving one and would not do anything that would jeopardize the education since human resource development had been the cardinal principle of the government. Madam Dy-Yakah urged school authorities that had not received their allocation to find out from the Education Ministry. He thanked the students for the mature manner they conducted themselves during the demonstration and advised them to use dialogue to resolve issues rather than violence.