Tamale, June 17, GNA - The Ghana National Association of Teachers Ladies Society (GNAT-LAS) has appealed to the government to extend the current three months maternity leave being given to female teachers to fo ur months to enable them to exclusively breast feed their babies. their husbands to enable them assist in taking care of their babies. Madam Helen Awurusa, National Coordinator for Gender Programmes of association in Tamale on Wednesday.

It was for 171 new GNAT-LAS executives from the Northern, Upper East and West regions to sharpen their skills to enable them improve upon the qual ity of education.

Madam Awurusa appealed to the government to establish more cr=E8ches so that female teachers could put their babies in the care of responsible people while they go about their teaching work. She said although the National School Feeding Programme was a laudab le initiative it was not achieving its objective because most of the deprive d schools especially in the rural areas were not benefiting from it. She appealed to the government to take a second look at the implementation of the programme to ensure that deprived schools actually benefited from it instead of concentrating it in areas where the pupils' parents are well off and could provide food for their children. Madam Awurusa appealed to the government to make the "World Teachers

Day" a public holiday and to also provide free HIV anti-retroviral drugs and other food supplements to teachers and school pupils. She said the provision of the HIV anti-retroviral drugs should also be put on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) drugs list. 17 June 10