The Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS) have for the second consecutive time failed to agree on new feeding fees for senior high schools. A meeting held last Thursday to negotiate and arrive at a consensus on the feeding fees to take effect from the 2009/10 academic year ended in a deadlock, after similar meeting had ended in a stalemate on June 3, 2009. The CHASS is asking for the feeding fees to be reviewed upwards from the current 80 Gp to GH¢ 1.20 in view of the increasing cost of foodstuffs. However, the GES presented GH¢1during the two meetings which the heads of schools describe as inadequate. The 80Gp is used to feed students three times daily. “At a meeting last Thursday representatives of the GES and the ministry said government was ready to pay GH¢1. We however disagreed, insisting on GH¢1.20, despite our previous stand of GH¢1.50. We also told them that the feeding fees did not go into only feeding the students but also the purchase of the gas among other things,” a source close to the CHASS said. It said the representatives of the GES and the GES and the ministry then promised to get back to the sector ministry to convey the position of CHASS to him when he returned from the Common Wealth Education Ministers meeting. The source said the GES was given up to mid July to come with its position so that the new fees would be factored into students’ bills for the 2009-2010 academic year which would commence in September. When contacted, the Director of the Basic and Secondary Education Division of the GES, Mr. Stephen Adu, confirmed that the position of CHASS would be communicated to the minister. He said the negotiation was still ongoing and expressed the hope that it would end early so that the new bills would be factored into the students’ bills. “We had fruithful discussions from the both sides and we are still negotiating,” he said, adding that the GES wanted to be more strategic, since the increase did not affect only government but parents as well. Mr Adu said CHASS had been asked to use the scientific approach to see what the GH¢1 and the GH¢ could provide.