The Ghana School Feeding Programme is strengthening its data management, monitoring, and collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES) as part of efforts to improve service delivery and prepare for future expansion.
The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, says government is prioritising quality and accurate beneficiary data to ensure resources are effectively channelled to schoolchildren.
Speaking at an engagement with regional and district directors of education in the Ashanti and Western North regions, the Minister said reliable data is critical to planning, budgeting, and ensuring value for money.
“The management of data is important, and that is the only way we are going to have value for money. We want to ensure that we are speaking from the same book, on the same page,” she stated.
She said government’s approach goes beyond reporting figures on funding and beneficiaries, stressing the need to focus on the children who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the programme.
Dr Lartey said while government remains committed to expanding the programme, improving the quality of meals must come first.
According to her, the Ministry is advocating increased funding to enable caterers to provide better meals for beneficiaries.
“If you are looking at nourishment and you’re building into the future, then you want to ensure that the minds you are nourishing are well nourished,” she noted.
She explained that expansion would require clean and verifiable data, as well as financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance.
“If we are able to clean our data well, expansion shouldn’t be a challenge for the Secretariat or the Ministry of Finance to approve,” she said.
The Minister also disclosed that monitoring of the programme has been increased to ensure that measures introduced to improve quality produce the desired impact.
The National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme, Hajia Fati Forgor, said the programme has expanded significantly since its introduction in 2005.
“The initiative started with 10 schools and 1,900 beneficiaries, but today we can say close to 70% of Ghana’s public schools, KG and primary, are currently benefiting from the programme. We are looking at 4,527,000 children benefiting,” she said.
Hajia Forgor said stronger collaboration with the Ghana Education Service is necessary because headteachers, who play a key role in the implementation of school feeding, report directly to education directors.
She said the engagement was therefore intended to strengthen coordination, clarify roles, and address challenges involving headteachers, caterers, and School Feeding coordinators.
“We are inviting you here for you to know us and for us to know you, and for you to appreciate the fact that we are willing to work closely with you to ensure that we improve Ghana’s School Feeding Programme to make the service a better one,” she added,
The engagement forms part of a nationwide initiative by the Ghana School Feeding Secretariat to deepen collaboration with the Ghana Education Service and improve monitoring, data management, and service delivery across schools.
