Food Policy Review No. 9Food for education (FFE) programs, including meals served in school and take-home rations conditional on school attendance, have recently received renewed attention as a policy instrument for achieving the Millennium Development Goals of universal primary education and the reduction of hunger in developing countries. FFE programs attract children to school by providing nutritious meals in exchange for school participation. If children are undernourished, the programs may also boost learning and cognitive development by improving attention spans and nutrition. The attraction of these programs is their potential to improve both school participation and learning and cognitive outcomes by increasing the consumption of nutritious food by undernourished children. However, FFE programs also have their critics. They are often more expensive than other programs that provide school inputs to increase school participation, and the nutrition benefits are small compared to those from nutrition programs targeting younger children. As a result, governments and donors are in the midst of a debate about the future of FFE programs.
This food policy review presents a rationale for FFE programs and undertakes a critical review of the causal evidence on the impact of FFE programs on education participation and attainment, learning, cognitive development, and nutrition.
Results from the most careful studies show that in-school meals programs improve primary school attendance of enrolled students where initial attendance was low. Potential impacts on school participation by children not previously enrolled in school are not well known. There is mixed evidence that school meals can improve performance on math and literacy tests, and they may improve cognitive development, depending on the type of food provided, the size of the food rations, and program duration. Several well-designed controlled trials have shown that school meals have a positive impact on nutrition outcomes, including anthropometry and iron status, though these results have received less support from field trials in more typical settings. There are few studies of scaled-up take-home ration programs, but one study from Bangladesh shows a significant impact on school participation. In general, FFE programs have larger impacts in areas with low school participation and on children with greater initial malnutrition. The impacts of the programs may also be higher when combined with complementary programs to improve schools or child health.
Despite a large literature on the impact of FFE programs, the authors found that many studies suffer from methodological shortcomings that limit the quality of their contributions. They argue for more carefully designed field trials to bolster the evidence. New research should directly compare alternative FFE programs and other programs with similar objectives to identify the program components that are most effective. Within FFE programs, more information is needed on how impacts on school attainment, learning, and cognitive development could be improved through more effective targeting, changes to the size and composition of food transfers, or provision of complementary schooling and health inputs. Side-by-side comparisons to other popular programs, such as conditional cash transfers and deworming, should also focus on the relative cost-effectiveness of achieving the broad set of education and nutrition objectives.
Joachim von Braun
Director General, IFPRI
This publication is available to download by chapter or as full text.
- Full Text
- Table of contents, foreword, preface, and front matter
- Chapter 1: Introduction and Motivation
- Chapter 2: The Structure and Scope of FFE Programs
- Chapter 3: Economic Rationale for FFE Programs
- Chapter 4: Method for Reviewing the Empirical Literature
- Chapter 5: Empirical Evidence of the Impacts on Education
- Chapter 6: Empirical Evidence of the Impacts on Food
Consumption and Nutrition
- Chapter 7: Other Programs Providing Schooling Inputs
- Chapter 8: Conclusion
- Appendix: How an Impact Evaluation Measures
Casual Effects of the Program
- References
- About the Authors