ARC Journal of Public Health and Community Medicine Volume 3, Issue 4, 2018, PP 1-8 ISSN No. (Online) 2456-0596 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20431/2456-0596.0304001 www.arcjournals.org ARC Journal of Public Health and Community Medicine Page | 1 Safety of Foods Given to Students under the School Feeding Programs by Cooks in Tamale Metropolis, Ghana Dr. Abdul Malik Bawah 1* , Dr. Herman Lutterodt 2 , Dr. Abdallah Iddrisu Yahaya 3 1 Department of Statistics Mathematics & Science, Tamale Technical University, Ghana. Medical Doctor, Tamale Teaching Hospital and Tamale Technical University 2 Department of Food Science and Technology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana 3 Senior Lecturer, University for Development Studies, UDS, Dept. Of Medicine and Allied Science, Clinician, Tamale Teaching Hospital, Regional Tb Clinician, Head of Chest Unit, Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) Ghana 1. INTRODUCTION The school feeding program is an educational policy with numerous advantages as evident by many research findings with the ultimate aim of benefiting all public basic schools across the country. Many school children are assured of food and this is a relief to many parents, especially the poor. The program has tremendously expanded its coverage since its implementation in 2005 with 10 pilot schools to now feed over 1,113,928 pupils across the country (GOG, 2014). Despite the enormous benefits, there are numerous food safety challenges confronting this program. As a domestic feeding program, it is faced with the challenges of food contamination, unhygienic conditions and sanitation. The program is run in public basic schools and so any food safety and quality challenges will be of serious public health concern. Many food safety issues have been raised with regards to quality of ingredients, food stuff and the hygienic conditions under which meals are being prepared for pupils. Food poisoning outbreaks mostly occur when cooked foods are handled by persons who carry pathogen in their nares or on their skin, (Protocarrero et al., 2002). These findings are indications for potential food poisoning *Corresponding Author: Dr. Abdul Malik Bawah, Department of Statistics Mathematics & Science, Tamale Technical University, Ghana. Medical Doctor, Tamale Teaching Hospital and Tamale Technical University , Box 3 E/R, Tamale -Ghana. E-mail: malikbawa2008@yahoo.com Abstract The Ghana School Feeding Program provides children in deprived kindergarten and primary schools in the country with a hot and nutritious meal at school. Despite the numerous advantages of the program, the media has widely reported quality and safety challenges. Adequate food safety knowledge of cooks of the feeding program is vital for positive food safety attitude as well as good food safety practices. It is against this background that this study was conducted to find out the safety knowledge of the cooks in the Tamale Metropolis and how it translates into safe food attitude and practices. The target population was all schools benefitting from the feeding programmed in the Tamale Metropolis and have run the programmed for at least two academic years. A descriptive study design utilizing mixed method was used. The list of all beneficiary schools that have run for at least two academic years was obtained from the Metropolitan Secretariat of the School Feeding Program and divided into three strata according to the three sub-metropolises. Simple random sampling was used to select the study schools from each stratum. Pre-tested and standardized structured questionnaires and observation checklist were used. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20 and presented descriptively. The findings showed that 67.4% of the respondents had knowledge, 86.7% of the attitude statements and 74.1% of food safety practice statements were sufficiently responded. Despite these high scores, their knowledge, attitude and practices were poor with respect to some critical aspects of food safety; food storage, food contamination, personal and food hygiene with insufficient scores of 66.7%, 85.7% and 70.5% respectively. The study recommends regular food safety education and training to all cooks as well as provision of basic food hygiene facilities to beneficiary schools. Keywords: Food Safety, Knowledge, cooks, School Feeding Program