ASSOCIATION OF DOMESTIC BURSARS CRIES FOR SUPPORT (PAGE 17)

THE National Association of Domestic Bursars and Matrons (NADBAM) has appealed to the government and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to provide adequate catering equipment for the catering departments of the various senior high schools across the country.
The provision of items like utensils and storage facilities such as freezers and cold rooms, as potable water, is expected to create a hygienic environment for the preparation and serving of food to students.
The President of NADBAM, Mrs Josephine Vernes, who made the appeal, said the “current state and condition of facilities with which some caterers prepare and serve to our students do not meet the minimum standards of catering”.
“We have to feed growing adolescents with huge appetites within a tight budget. We are aware that these fast-growing adolescents need food that is nutritious to enable them to be healthy, alert and be able to study,” she stated.
Mrs Vernes was speaking at the association’s biennial conference, on the theme “The Challenges Confronting Institutional Feeding and the New Educational Reforms”, at Koforidua.
The President of NADBAM said over the years, efforts by the GES to improve the standards of education in second-cycle institutions had mainly been focused on classrooms and academic areas, while the catering departments had been entirely neglected.
Such unfortunate situation, she noted, had led to the lack of catering equipment and facilities such as storage space, freezers or cold rooms and potable water, a challenge that had made catering very difficult in most SHSs.
“Cloak and changing-room facilities are almost non-existent in most of the schools. This does not augur well for good personal and environmental hygiene practices,” she said, adding that most catering departments had to rely on commercial transport to facilitate their work.
The president said another issue that had remained a major concern to the association was the practice whereby some heads of institutions employed their unqualified relatives in the catering departments “for spying purposes and to pry into areas they have no expertise”.
She said that practice, coupled with the ability of storekeepers having absolute powers over stores and purchases, was not only impeding the smooth running of the catering departments but also promoting indiscipline in the kitchen.
In a speech read on his behalf by the Deputy Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Ofosu Asamoah, the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Kwadwo Affram Asiedu, said the present professional preparation and serving of food in second-cycle schools had curbed the tendency of students going on demonstrations in the past because of poor food.
He, therefore, commended the members of the association for their commitment and expressed the hope that such virtues would be sustained to ensure a peaceful atmosphere on the campuses of second cycle institutions.
Mr Asiedu further urged the members of the association to adhere to the new procurement law in the purchase of food items to ensure cost effectiveness.