Tamale, May 20, GNA - Board chairmen of second cycle institutions in Tamale on Friday appealed to district assemblies and Members of Parliament from the area to use part of their Common and the Poverty Alleviation Funds to assist schools in the three northern regions with feeding grants.

They also appealed to the government and the authorities responsible for the feeding grants to consider the plight of education in the north and release feeding grants to schools before they reopen to enhance teaching and learning.

Mr Albert Atutiga, a spokesman for the board chairmen, said this at an emergency meeting and discussions focussed on how school boards could help to stop the constant late arrival of feeding grants to schools in the northern sector.

Mr Atutiga said the continuous closure of public boarding schools in the three northern regions because feeding grants was deepening the plight of education in the north and called on all Ghanaians with ideas as to how to solve the problem to come out.

"At the moment school children in the southern sector are in the classrooms but those here are at home and are expected to write the same examinations at the end of the day. I wonder how they can write and pass well."

Mr Atutiga said a percentage of the District Assembly Common Fund and that of the MPs' as well as some HIPC funds could solve the problem temporarily until a lasting solution is found.

He appealed to NGOs and other individuals to find to assist the schools with feeding grants to reverse the perennial problem. Other matters that the chairmen discussed included encroachment on school lands, irregular water supply to schools and enrolment into the schools.