The Impact of School Meals on School Participation: Evidence from Rural India

This article assesses the effect of transition from monthly distribution of free food grains to the daily provision of free cooked meals to school children on enrolments and attendance in a rural area of India. School panel data allow a difference-in-differences estimation strategy to address possib...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of development studies Vol. 47; no. 11; pp. 1636 - 1656
Main Author Afridi, Farzana
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 01.11.2011
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Attendance
Children
Children & youth
Distribution
Educational Attainment
Educational enrolment
Estimating techniques
Females
Food aid
India
Intervention
Meals
Panel data
Placement
Pupils
Rural Areas
School attendance
Schools
Student participation
India
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Summary:This article assesses the effect of transition from monthly distribution of free food grains to the daily provision of free cooked meals to school children on enrolments and attendance in a rural area of India. School panel data allow a difference-in-differences estimation strategy to address possible endogeneity of programme placement. The results suggest that programme transition had a significant impact on improving the daily participation rates of children in lower grades. The average monthly attendance rate of girls in grade one was more than 12 percentage points higher while there was a positive but insignificant effect on grade one boys' attendance rate. The impact on enrolment levels was insignificant.
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ISSN:0022-0388
1743-9140
DOI:10.1080/00220388.2010.514330