The Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) has threatened to close down all public senior high schools in the three northern regions if feeding grants for the students are not released by Thursday, March 13. A statement issued in Tamale said it had become necessary to close down the schools due to the inability of the government to release grants to feed the students. Mr. C. K. Nyabu, Chairman of the Northern, Mr. Francis Avonsige, the Chairman of the Upper East and Mr. M. N. Donneyong, Chairman of the Upper West regional branches of CHASS signed the statement. The statement said, on humanitarian grounds, the headmasters of the schools would allow the third year students to remain in school since they would be writing their examination soon. It said CHASS had on December 22, 2007 and January 29, 2008 written to the Minister of Education, Science and Sports, the regional ministers of the three regions and the Director General of the Ghana Education Service explaining the plight of the schools. The statement said since the beginning of the academic year, only 40 per cent of the first term feeding grant for SHS 2 and SH S3 were received. The schools did not receive anything for the SHS 1 students. The headmasters said they managed the situation by lifting food items from suppliers on credit with the hope that the grant would be released for them to settle the debts accrued from the first and second terms. "We wish to stress that all the boarding schools in the three northern regions have run out of food as suppliers are no more ready to supply food on credit.” "We are sincerely very worried about the current state of affairs and wish to respectfully appeal to the sector minister to use his good offices to expedite action to salvage the situation", it said. Source: GNA