Government’s initiative to provide final year Junior High School (JHS) students, teachers and staff with one hot meal a day started on Monday with some students expressing gratitude to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for fulfilling his promise.

The initiative, expected to last for the next 20 days, will benefit about 584,000 pupils and 146,000 teachers in about 17,440 private and public JHS schools across the country.

The President announced the initiative in his 15th Update on the country’s COVID-19 Response and said the decision was based on reports that some pupils were going hungry in school due to compliance with the safety protocols.

A visit by the Ghana News Agency to the Genuine International School, a private JHS at Ablekuma Oduman in the Ga West Municipal Assembly, about 40 pupils and their teachers were served plain rice with stew and boiled egg with a sachet of water at 1220 hours.

Margaret Afum, a final year JHS student, thanked the Government for the free meal, saying; “This meal will help me stay in school and study for extra hours even after our lesson period.”

She said the intervention was timely because they would gain extra energy to prepare well for the final examination.

Mr Amos Akpah, a Teacher at the School, lauded the President for fulfilling his promise and prayed that the meals would be delivered on time.

At the Nii Kodjo Ababioo Basic School at Mamprobi in the Ablekuma South Sub-Metro of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Mr Kwame Nkrumah, a Teacher, commended the Government for the foresight and said many more students reported to school because of the free lunch.

He appealed for a reconsideration of the menu, which he said had eggs for all the days.

“Eggs for the students, fine, but we, the teachers, cannot take eggs every day because of our age,’’ he said.

Mr Ben Nyavor, a Teacher at the Mamprobi Evangelical Presbyterian Basic School, said the quantity and taste of the food was good.