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School Feeding Programs (SFPs)
School feeding programs have been implemented in many countries in an attempt to improve the health, nutrition, and ultimately educational performances and attendance of school-aged children. Yet, the jury is still out on the effectiveness and sustainability of these initiatives. There is little evidence to suggest that school feeding programs have a positive impact on nutrition for participating children. For example, in some instances, parents may provide less food at home, with the school meal simply replacing a home meal rather than adding food to the child’s diet; however, it appears that providing breakfast instead of lunch could diminish this substitution effect. While it has been shown that malnourished or hungry children are less able to learn, Supplementary Feeding Program improve learning only when the food is accompanied by other inputs related to school quality. On the other hand, the evidence strongly suggests that SFP can increase attendance rates, especially for girls.
Before advocating for Supplementary Feeding Programs (SFPs), one should be aware of the following:
- Programs providing a hot meal in the middle of the day have high opportunity costs for education systems, and there is little evidence of nutritional or educational benefits. An appropriate morning snack is more cost-effective and has been shown to have educational impact.
- To be most effective, SFPs should target relatively poor areas where school enrollment and attendance rates are low and where the value of food is sufficient to attract children to school. These programs should also be integrated into a broader package that promotes balanced nutrition, clean water and high sanitary standards, both at school and at home. Like conditional transfers, SFPs should be part of an educational reform program that addresses issues such as teacher training, curriculum reform, and student assessment.
- The sustainability of SFPs is questionable because of their relatively high cost. The average cost per student of the development SFPs of the World Food Program in 2000 was $0.19 per day, or $34 for a 180 day school year. These costs may be unaffordable for most African governments. In addition, SFPs are labor intensive and require skilled human resources to operate. Ministries of Education are therefore not encouraged to offer SFPs at the expense of other more important educational inputs.
- Providing food as a take home ration can be an effective incentive for school attendance, but alternative programs, such as cash transfers, may be more cost-effective and simpler to administer.
- In most situations, nutritional supplements are more cost-effective for preschool than school age children.
- SFPs may have an adverse effect on the global economy. Subsidies on food products tend to distort relative prices in the economy, which, in turn, can have negative implications for food production and marketing.
Lessons from past experience suggest the following steps
steps for setting up a School Feeding Program
(see also A Summary of the School Feeding/Food for Education Stakeholders’ Meeting) :
- Build a consensus on a policy and objectives that focuses on how school feeding can effectively contribute to improving education and to meeting the nutrition and health needs of school-aged children.
- Develop targeting criteria and mechanisms that concentrate program resources on high-risk children and communities.
- Analyze and identify alternative financing and cost options for SFPs, since these programs are expensive.
- Develop appropriate guidelines for ration composition and the timing of school meals.
- Identify and address any potential bottlenecks in implementation: such as the availability of supplies and other resources. On-site prepared meals, pre-prepared meals, and food in bulk or coupons are the primary school feeding program models. Each model is associated with a different set of potential bottlenecks related to program implementation.
- Develop monitoring systems that focus on program processes and institute an evaluation system to assess the impact of the program on specific outcomes.
- Integrate feeding programs with other interventions that address the primary nutrition and health problems of the school-aged population. These include de-worming, micronutrient supplementation, and health and nutrition hygiene education. ( For more information, see Class Action: Improving School Performance in the Developing World through Better Health and Nutrition, Del Rosso and Marek, 1996.)
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