Analysis of the effect of school feeding program on academic performance of students in Manafwa district. A case study of Butiru sub county

Abstract

This study analyzed the effect of School Feeding Program (SFP) on academic performance of students in Manafwa district, particularly focusing on the two secondary schools in Butiru sub-county. The study was guided by three specific objectives namely; to determine the effect of SFP on students’ academic performance in school, to determine the effect of student’s demographic factors (age and gender) on their academic performance in school, and to determine the effect of student’s school attendance on their academic performance in school. The study deployed a simple random technique to select 75 students from each of the two secondary schools to participate in the study and a structured questionnaire was used to collect the required data and STATA 15.0 software was used in data analysis. The result of the analysis revealed that they registered a response rate of 100%, with 62.67% of the respondents being male. In-school feeding was the only SFP implemented in both schools. The average aggregate scored by the students was 34.02, with the minimum score of aggregate 23 and a maximum score of aggregate 48. The findings from bivariate analysis revealed that there were significant impact between students sex, school attendance, residence, SFP (supper), and academic performance (p < 0.05). Whereas students age and class were found not be significantly associated with their academic performance (p > 0.05). The results of the linear regression analysis revealed that only 40.83% of the overall variations in the students’ academic performance (aggregate) was caused by sex, school, residence, and class attendance of the students. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommended that SFP should be continued and parents should be motivated to send their children to boarding section and encourage the day-scholars to attend school daily in order to improve their academic performances in school.