The Impact on School Feeding on Children's Growth and Development

In order to improve child nutrition, the Poverty Reduction Strategy adopted by the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has called for the initiation of a school feeding programme for primary school children living in poor and disadvantaged families and communities where the prevalence of child malnutrition is high. Accordingly, a pilot feeding programme is planned for implementation in Government and NGO schools in 10 Upazilas in rural Bangladesh with the aim of: 1) enhancing the nutritional status and growth of younger school-going children by reducing micronutrient deficiencies and providing a protein/calorie supplement; 2) improving learning capacity and attentiveness in the classroom; 3) increasing enrollment, attendance and completion rates and 4) supporting the goals of achieving universal primary education and reducing gender disparity. The objectives of the proposed baseline survey respond to GoB\'s aims: 1. To assess the nutrition status of younger school-going children prior to the initiation of a school feeding programme, thus enabling the later assessment of programme impact on micronutrient deficiencies and anthropometric indicators. 2. To assess the cognitive performance and school attendance of children prior to the initiation of a school feeding programme thus enabling the later assessment of programme impact on school enrollment and attendance, and learning capacity. The baseline study will be conducted using a cluster randomized study design in which schools represent clusters. Seven schools will be randomly selected from each of 7 Upazilas out of 10 that have been selected for intervention. A control group will be included in study design consisting of 7 schools selected randomly from 7 comparable yet adjacent Upazilas not slated for inclusion in the feeding programme. Use of a control group will enable later evaluations to attribute possible improvements in key impact/outcome variables to the intervention itself. A mid term evaluation will be conducted 6 months after the baseline survey. Finally, an impact evaluation will be conducted on the same children 10-14 months after the baseline survey.