Effects of School Feeding Programme on Enrollment and Retention in Primary Schools in Lilongwe, Malawi
Loading...
Date
2015-12
Authors
Chalunda, Linda Kamwenda
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
School Feeding is one of the supplementary policies in the education sector in Malawi
implemented to enhance enrollment and retention in the system. The policy was implemented as
one of the initiatives to achieve the Millennium Development Goal which aimed to achieving
Universal Primary Education. The number of beneficiary schools of school feeding program has
increased from 13 schools in 2004 to 33 in 2011 in Lilongwe district. However it is not clear
whether the increase in enrolment and retention is as a result of School Feeding Programme or
other interventions by the government. Findings from previous studies have reported mixed
results pertaining to the effects of school feeding on enrolment and retention in schools. These
studies failed to incorporate the effect of school feeding as there are other variables that lead to
the increase in enrolment and retention in schools. The aim of the study was to investigate the
difference in enrolment of pupils between primary schools with School Feeding Programme and
school's without School Feeding Program in Lilongwe district, to establish the difference in
retention of pupils between primary schools with school feeding and schools without school
feeding program and to investigate the effects of school feeding on enrolment and retention in
the district. To investigate the difference in enrolment and retention between the schools, the
study tested independence of the differences between the observed results and expected results in
schools implementing School Feeding Programme and schools not implementing School Feeding
Programme using the Chi Square. Data on enrolments was obtained from school registers, staff
retains and government policy documents. To investigate the effects of school feeding on
enrolment and retention in Lilongwe, two models were estimated and the findings show that
school feeding programme has an effect on enrolment but no effect on retention of pupils in the
sampled primary schools. The variables which were found to be statistically significant in
explaining the variations include number of teachers and performance in examinations. The
study concludes that School Feeding Programme has a significant effect on enrolment but does
not have any effect on retention in primary schools. Therefore the government of Malawi should
work towards recruiting more teachers and expanding School Feeding Programme to other
schools to attract enrolment. And also, school managers should find ways of improving
performance on examinations to improve retention in the government schools. Policies such as
the Malawi Integrated In-service Teacher Education Project (MIITEP) are in the right direction
Description
A Research Project Submitted to the Department of Applied Economics in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of Master of Economics (Cooperation and Human Development) of Kenyatta University, December 2015