Assessment of School feeding Programme among Pupils in Public Primary Schools in North-western Nigeria

Participation in education by children from families struck by poverty is a major challenge in attaining the United Nations goal of attaining Universal health education by year 2030.Education, particularly basic education makes an important contribution to alleviating human suffering by improving people’s ability to take advantage of the opportunities that can improve their well-being. The school feeding programme addresses the nutritional needs of Pupils in addition to increasing enrolment and performance of pupils, which are in line with achieving development agenda enshrined in the sustainable development goals. The aim of the study is to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of school feeding programme in public primary schools in Kaduna State.

Primary data was obtained through a semi-structured questionnaire administered on 231 respondents in eight randomly selected public schools in Zaria Kaduna State. Data was retrieved and analysed using SPSS version 25.

The result showed good knowledge, and attitude towards the programme by pupils, meals were served once daily for pupils in primary one to three only, however challenges include small ration, food not tasty and poor food choices while some pupils don’t get at all, necessitating the need to increase oversight over preparation of meals to improve quality, make it more inclusive in addition to deworming of pupils.

Malnutrition is the largest single underlying cause of death worldwide [1,2], it is associated with over 33% of all childhood deaths and half of all cases of absence in children of primary school age in Nigeria [2], children from the poorest households are four times more likely to be out of school than children from the richest households [3], In Nigeria, an estimated 40% of all children go to school hungry,44% of children less than 5 years are stunted and 11% suffer wasting [2,4]. Current dropouts from primary school is estimated at 30% and more than 10 million do not attend school at all [2]. To a hungry child going to school is not as important as having food to eat, such children are likely to quit school because they have to deal with their immediate subsistence needs before they get ready for schooling, thus low school enrolment, low school attendance and high student drop-outs are recurring problems in child education among poor households.4 The school feeding programme was design to tackle the trio of malnutrition,  enrolment and retention of school age children in universal basic education programmes, and improve understanding and learning of children which will in the long run improve human capital development [3,4]. Nigeria and its international partners designed the Home-Grown School Feeding and Health Program (HGSFHP) in 2005, however faced with many bottlenecks, the programmed was relaunched in 2016 with priority given to arrears of high food insecurity, conflicts and other emergencies as an intervention for more than 10million out of school children [2,4]. School feeding  was the first component of the UK government welfare reform in 1906,it has now become universal, serving as a social safety programme in the USA, Brazil, India, and other developing countries [2,5], Currently there has been an enhanced demand for school feeding programmes from low-income countries as it serves as a social safety net, School food, politics and child health, in addition to the longer-term implications for social protection and the development of human capital development [6].  Also, there is evidence that school feeding programmes may increase school enrolment, attendance, cognition, and educational achievement especially among the poorest and vulnerable children, particularly if supported by complementary actions such as deworming and micronutrient fortification or supplementation [7-10].

Study Design and Population

The study design is cross-sectional descriptive conducted amongst pupils of public primary schools in Zaria Local government area Kaduna State Nigeria. Zaria is one of the historical towns in Kaduna State known for its numerous public institutions, and landmarks.

Sampling technique

A multistage sampling technique was employed, beginning with the random selection of one LGA out of the 23 LGAs in Kaduna state by random selection followed by selection of eight wards from 14 wards in Zaria LGA by random allocation, the third stage involve selection of eight public primary schools by method of balloting. In the fourth stage, 30 pupils were randomly selected from a sample frame of pupils in primary three class using the method of random numbers. Making a total sample of 280 pupils.

The formula for populations less than 10,000 as given by Cochran in 19776  is given as follows:

Where n=minimum sample size for a single population parameter; Z=Normal standard deviation (1.96); P=Proportion of youth with family communication from previous study (0.77); d=desired precision; q=proportion of youth without desired family communication; In addition to 10% non-response; n=231

Instrument for Data collection

A semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaire with questions arranged in six sections, reflecting the objectives of the study.

Inclusion criteria

Public Primary school with a School Feeding Programme

Exclusion Criteria

Public Primary school whose feeding programme is not ongoing at time of data collection

Public primary school pupils in other classes except primary three

Data was manually cleaned, checked for completeness, coded and entered into statistical software for social sciences SPSS statistics now IBM corporation version 25. Results were summarised and presented descriptively in the form of tables and charts where appropriate. Statistical test of significance was used to find associations between variables with level of significance set at p<0.05

Scoring system: Knowledge attitude and practice of respondents were graded by allocating a score of one for every correct answer and zero for wrong or unanswered question. Fifty percentage was used as cutoff for good and poor knowledge, positive and negative attitude as well as adequate and inadequate practice.

Ethical clearance

Ethical approval was obtained from the health research and ethics committee of Ahmadu Bello University teaching hospital Zaria, furthermore, permission was sought from the district heads of the wards, in addition to informed consent from the respondents.

All pupils (231) received meals from Monday to Fridays once daily with majority 192(85.7%) of meals served between 10:00am to 11:00am, while 32(14.3%) were served at later periods. Age distribution of pupils was 4-16 years with (50.9%) of pupils being boys.

Table 1: Socio-demographic characteristics of the pupils in public primary schools in Zaria Kaduna State

Majority 158(68.7%) were aged 6-10years, the sex distribution of the respondents shows 117(50.9%) were males with the majority 88(38.1%) of them having father’s occupation as trading while 64(27.7%) were civil servants. Majority 220(98.2%) of respondents are happy with SFP and would want the programme to continue, in addition 95.3% are confident that SFP will improve school attendance. Overall, 214(92.6%) of the respondents showed positive attitude to SFP.

Table 2: Association between respondents’ knowledge and attitude towards school feeding program in public primary schools.

ꭕ2 =58.394, α=0.05, df=1, p-value<0.001; Knowledge of pupils on School feeding programme was significantly associated with attitude of the pupils on School feeding programme.

Table 3: Association between respondents’ knowledge and practices towards school feeding program in public primary schools.

ꭕ2=77.756, α=0.05, df=1, p-value<0.001; A statistically significant association was found between knowledge on Sfp and practice of Sfp.

Table 4: Association between respondents’ attitude and practice towards school feeding program in public primary schools.

ꭕ2=77.55, α=0.05, df=1, p-value<0.001; A statistically significant association was found between attitude on SFP and practice of SFP.

More boys were enrolled in the Programme than girls, similar to findings by previous studies in Northwestern Nigeria [11], this bespeak the inequity in girl enrolment and retention in schools which is more pronounced at higher levels of study [12]. The Universal basic education working with the mandate of sustainable development goal aim to address this inequity in access to education [12].

Majority of the respondents were aware government is the sponsor of the School Feeding Programme, contributing all resources for the programme, this finding is similar to that in south east Nigeria [2], however, this contrast findings by Beatrice at al who though reported high awareness, with government contributing significantly, parents and local communities also take ownership by providing pupils with eating bowls, cooking utensils,and remuneration for the cooks, in addition to parents direct involvement in SFP committee; this level of involvement will increase sustainability rate of the programme [13] Also, the programme was limited to Junior classes of one to three similar to what is obtainable in the south east.2 The benefit of the school feeding programme can be maximised if the scope of the programme is expanded to accommodate pupils in higher classes like primary 4 to 6.

On knowledge, majority of respondents in this current study were found to have a good knowledge of the school feeding programme, this was the same finding in previous studies, however, the knowledge was much higher in this current study, the difference could be accounted for by the category of respondence and tools used, as the previous studies used a qualitative approach [2,4,6]. Two-third of the respondence said they do not get enough food, and another one-third mentioned that the food is not delicious, this collaborates findings from the Southeast of Nigeria,2 necessitating the need to improve the quality and quantity of meals served. The meals served include Rice and beans, bean porridge, Moi-Moi and Biscuit with Juice. The knowledge of school feeding programme was found to be significantly associated with attitude towards school feeding programme (p<0.05), likewise knowledge was also found to be significantly associated with practice of school feeding programme as majority of pupils were found to wash hands before and after eating their meals, (Table 4.2 and table 4.3).

Furthermore, majority of respondents were found to have positive attitude towards the School Feeding Programme, as a significant majority of respondence were happy with the programme, and had a positive feeling on availability of food in the school, also, a majority of the respondence said they understand lessons better since the commencement of the programme and that the programme has improved their health and attendance, wishing the programme would be sustain in the long run. These findings are collaborated by other studies other studies where school feeding programmes have been rolled out [2,4-14].

On practices of Pupils, majority of the respondence wash hands before and after eating, which one of the best practices required for food hygiene. The attitude of respondence was significantly associated with practice as majority of pupils with positive attitude were found to have adequate practices towards school feeding programme at p<0.05. School feeding programme in the light of this survey is said to have wide acceptability by the respondence, meeting pupils’ nutritional needs at the time increasing assimilation and retention of pupils in school.

Recommendations

Parents and communities are important stakeholders whose involvement in government programmes such as School feeding programme will increase the sustainability of the programme. 

Also oversight on quality and quantity of meals served, in addition to addition of deworming is a desirable goal.

Need to increase the scope of the programme to include primary four to six in the category of classes to be served.

Authors’ Contribution

Conceptualization: Musa Yakubu, Muhammad SY and Ojowu MY

Data collection: Musa Yakubu, Muhammad SY and Ojowu MY

Data analysis: Musa Yakubu, Musa Yakubu, Abdullahi Shehu, Charles ES

Manuscript draft: Musa Yakubu, Musa Yakubu, Aminu Abubakar Balah

Manuscript review and Finalization: Musa Yakubu, Tony Obanimoh and Ojowu Margaret Yakubu

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest

Funding

From personal contribution of the authors