The impact of school feeding programme on primary day school attendance in Turkana central division, central district, Turkana county.

Abstract

School feeding program as a social safety net has been popular in developing countries as an instrument for achieving the millennium development goals touching on education. These program target populations that are food insecure and reside in areas with high concentrations of families from low socioeconomic status and targets schools that experience poor attendance and enrolment of students. The main purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between school feeding program and attendance in public primary schools in central division of Turkana County. Specifically the study sought to establish the relationship between schools feeding program and enrolment in the Central District. To identify the relationship between school feeding program and dropout rate and in Turkana Central division. Descriptive research design was employed to carry out the study. The target population was 15 school committee members, 30 teachers and 75 pupils and data was collected by the use of questionnaires. The analysis extracted from these studies shows that school feeding programs enhanced pupils‟ attendance as there were many pupils‟ attending school when there was food in schools‟ food store. The study therefore concluded that school feeding program influenced the enrolment of pupils‟ as lack of food in schools was number one reason for dropouts. The study recommended that government: the donors and stakeholders in education should ensure the schools have constant supply of food with the view of improving attendance and enrolment; both county government and national government through ministry of education should allocate more funding to SFP to lessen the dropout rates; and finally, the government should set up committee to survey hardship areas and recommend areas that need to be covered with SFP to ensure that areas that are prone hardship receive SFP to ensure that pupils‟ attend schools.