PARENTS, TEACHERS EMBARK ON PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION (Daily Graphic Wednesday May 14,2008 PAGE 11)

Some of the demonstrating students
Story: Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bolgatanga
A number of students, mainly from second cycle institutions, and their parents embarked on a peaceful demonstration in the Upper East Regional capital in protest against the government's failure to release the school feeding grant to second cycle institutions in the three northern regions.The demonstration which was organised by a pressure group known as the Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA) was restricted to the Saint John's Park at Bolgatanga, after both organisers and the Regional Security Council had agreed that with the current unrest in Bawku it was not appropriate to disturb the peace of the region through such a procession. The demonstration would have originally taken the demonstrators through the principal streets and end at the forecourt of the Regional Co-ordinating Council.Amidst singing and dancing, the students carried placards, some of which read "no feeding, no vote", "Oga give us our feeding grants" among others. They went round the field several times and were later addressed by the regional minister, Mr Alhassan Samari.The executives of NORPRA, led by its President, Mr Bismark AyorogoAdongo, presented a petition to the regional minister,in which they noted that, second cycle institutions in the north which should have been reopened by now, were still closed, and that school authorities did not even know when the feeding grants would be released.The petition said human resource development which was a priority of the government would undoubtedly suffer if the government continued to neglect and frustrate teaching and learning efforts in educational institutions in the three northern regions.It therefore called on the government to, as a matter of urgency, release the feeding grants to enable first and second year students in second cycle schools to get back to school.Speaking to demonstrators, the regional minister, Mr Alhassan Samari, acknowledged the current difficulties the various schools were going through and emphasised that as a son of the region and someone who had schooled in the region, he fully appreciated their frustrations.He said the government was working assiduously to ameliorate their challenges, adding that some amount of money had been released to heads of educational institutions to enable them to recall the students for academic work to continue.He urged the students to call off their procession and gave the assurance that some good news was going to be announced soon.The students obliged but warned that if nothing was heard this week they would be back on the streets.The failure of the National Scholarship Secretariat to release funds for the feeding of students in the second cycle schools in the three northern regions has resulted in the indefinite postponement of the reopening of the third term of senior high schools in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions.First and second year students who were to report in their respective schools on April 27, 2008 for the third term were still at home.