It’s 12:30 p.m. on July 19, 2024, in Diasso-Bethlehem, a quiet community in Ghana’s Upper Denkyira West District. Eleven-year-old Clementina Amoako has just returned home from school, not for a lunch break, but to cook.
Her small hands expertly order a pot and food ingredients on the family’s traditional firewood stove—a skill she has perfected out of necessity. For the entire second term of her primary 6-year, Clementina has had to fend for herself because the school’s feeding program has ceased.
“At the beginning, they used to cook for us,” Clementina explains softly, her gaze fixed on the ground. “But I don’t know why they stopped.”
Her hunger, she says, doesn’t just hurt her concentration—it also makes her afraid. “I’m scared I might not become the bank manager I dream of,” she adds, her voice tinged with worry.
Clementina’s plight reflects the challenges faced by millions of children who depend on the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP). Introduced in 2005, the program aims to provide one hot meal daily to pupils in public basic schools, ensuring they remain in school and focus on their studies instead of their empty stomachs.
In its 2024 budget statement, the government claimed the program served over 3.8 million children in 10,000 schools nationwide. Clementina’s school, Bethlehem DA Basic School, is one of those expected beneficiaries.
Yet, as Clementina’s experience shows, the reality on the ground is different. Despite the government’s announcement that GH₵5.4 billion has been disbursed to support social protection programs, including school feeding, many schools across the country have no cooks cooking.
At Bethlehem DA Primary School, Clementina’s teacher, Augustine Tetteh, has seen firsthand how the lack of meals affects his pupils.
“When the school feeding program was running, Clementina would come to class happy and active,” Tetteh shares. “But recently, the food hasn’t been coming, and you can see the difference. It’s harder for her to concentrate.”
The situation is not unique to Clementina’s school. Across Ghana, children are being forced to go home for meals or endure long hours of hunger. For many, this means skipping school altogether.
“The point of the program is to ensure that children are in school and get good food,” says Auberon Jeleel Odoom, a convener of the CSOs Platform for Social Protection. “If a child has to go home and come back—or worse, not return—it defeats the purpose of the policy. It’s a worrying situation.”
As the 2024 general elections approach, the fate of the School Feeding Programme hangs in the balance. Both major political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC), have mentioned the program in their manifestoes, but neither seems to offer a concrete solution to its current struggles.
The NPP, in its 2024 manifesto, only highlights its record of increasing the program’s coverage, stating that they have “Fed over 4 million beneficiaries under the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) in 2024, compared to 1.6 million in 2016,” nothing else beyond that.
Meanwhile, the NDC promises to “increase and ensure regular payment of capitation and feeding grants” and proposes targeted reforms, including decentralizing management to the district level and ensuring timely payments to caterers. They also pledge to use geographical data to expand the program to deprived communities.
But for Clementina, these promises mean little if they don’t translate into action soon. Every day without the program takes her further from the education she desperately wants.
“When I go to school and they don’t cook, I get very hungry. When that happens, I can’t focus on what the teacher is teaching” she says quietly.
Her fear is shared by many children in Ghana who, like her, dream of a better future but are held back by hunger.
If the School Feeding Programme is to fulfill its promise of ensuring no child is left behind, it will take more than campaign rhetoric. It will require decisive action to address its challenges—because dreams like Clementina’s shouldn’t end in an empty classroom.
By: Theodore Abiwu Korku Mawutor | multi-media Journalist, Social protection advocate.
