The Ghana Education Service (GES) has appealed to heads of second-cycle schools in the three northern regions to exercise restraint as the service takes steps to get the Scholarship Secretariat to release the feeding grant for second-cycle schools as early as possible. According to the acting Head of the Public Relations Unit of the GES, Mr Paul Kofi Krampa, "It is the Scholarship Secretariat that is in charge, not the GES. "The feeding grants come from the Scholarship Secretariat: The secretariat also receives the money from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund)," he said, adding that the service could only appeal for the release of the money to ensure smooth academic activities in the schools. He also appealed to food suppliers to the schools to exercise restraint and cooperate with the heads as they tried to secure funds to settle their outstanding debts. Mr Krampa said the suppliers should continue to assist the schools since they had worked together over the years, saying that that was the time to be close to the heads. The heads of second-cycle schools in the three northern regions had said in a statement that they would be compelled to send home first and second-year students by Thursday, March 13, 2008 if full grants of the first and second terms were not released. They explained that since the beginning of the academic year in September last year, only 40 percent of the feeding grant for second and final-year students had been released, while nothing had been received for first-year students for the same term. "The second term started in January 2008 and as of now we are in the eighth week, yet no funds have been released for the feeding of students in all forms," they further stated. The heads alleged that even though they had written letters to the sector ministry, the Ghana Education Service and the three regional ministers in the north on their plight, they were yet to receive the needed responses on the release of the grants. Source: Daily Graphic