School feeding and enrolment, participation and learning Achievement : A case study of an urban and a rural primary school in the Jasikan District, Ghana.

Abstract

Summary

Primary education is receiving much attention from governments of all countries in recent times. However, poverty and hunger serves as barriers to achieving the Education for All (EFA) policy initiative launched in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990 to ensure that every child is offered the opportunity and benefits of education. To actualise the EFA in some African countries like Ghana was the introduction of some educational intervention programmes such as the capitation grant and the school feeding. School feeding programmes are safety net programmes as well as educational interventions ensuring that children with poor parents are given at least a meal a day at school. This thesis adopted the qualitative research method to investigate how the School feeding programme contributes to enrolment, participation and learning achievements in a rural and an urban primary school in the Jasikan District, Ghana. The findings of this research indicate that enrolment and participation of pupils has increased in both schools. Parents’ decisions to enrol their children of school-going age irrespective of their social and economic status were noted to have contributed to the high rates of enrolment and participation in school. However, findings on the learning achievement of pupils revealed mixed results as pupils responses conflicted with that of the teachers in especially the urban school. It was observed that the way the food is served to the children disrupt the learning processes in both schools. This study specifically contributes and improves knowledge on the existing literature on the School feeding programme most especially within the study context.