Principals of Colleges of Education across Ghana have threatened to shut down the schools by the end of May if the government does not release funds for the maintenance of students’ stay on campus.

All 46 Colleges of Education in Ghana could be affected as the authorities say they have not been paid feeding grants since the start of the academic year in January.

President of the Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education, Emmanuel Nyamekye in an exclusive interview with JoyNews’ Fred Smith said the only option available to them is for the students to go home.

“If nothing is done in the next couple of weeks, we may be compelled to ask our students to go home,” he said.

Lamenting their difficulties, he said food suppliers for the schools have ceased due to arrears owed from as far back as the first term.

He, therefore, called on the government to take immediate actions, "because once the suppliers fail to supply, there’s very little we can do under the circumstance."

“We cannot go to the open market and buy so our suppliers have the trump card and until we get some money to at least appease them, they would not give us any food items and when that happens, we can’t feed our students,” he apprised.

He noted that the outbreak of the coronavirus in the country had already affected studies and “we don’t want the semester disrupted.”

“But we have a very little option available to us, if nothing is done by the end of May, we may be left with no option,” he stressed.

The President of the Conference also noted that their inability to provide the students with meals would also trigger misunderstanding in the institutions.

“Our students are such that once they miss even a meal, they would think that it is the Principal who has failed or refused to feed them and they wouldn’t take kindly to that at all,” he said.

He added: “We wouldn’t want the colleges to get into that kind of situation where we would have problems with our students.”

“So the best option for us would be for the students to go home unless something is done now for us to be able to keep our students in school,” he maintained.