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Child friendly schools

UNICEF has developed a framework for rights-based, child-friendly educational systems and
schools that are characterized as "inclusive, healthy and protective for all children, effective with
children, and involved with families and communities - and children" (Shaeffer, 1999). Within
this framework:

 The school is a significant personal and social environment in the lives of its students. A
child-friendly shool ensures every child an environment that is physically safe,
emotionally secure and psychologically enabling.
 Teachers are the single most important factor in creating an effective and inclusive
classroom.
 Children are natural learners, but this capacity to learn can be undermined and sometimes
destroyed. A child-friendly school recognizes, encourages and supports children's
growing capacities as learners by providing a school culture, teaching behaviours and
curriculum content that are focused on learning and the learner.
 The ability of a school to be and to call itself child-friendly is directly linked to the
support, participation and collaboration it receives from families.
 Child-friendly schools aim to develop a learning environment in which children are
motivated and able to learn. Staff members are friendly and welcoming to children and
attend to all their health and safety needs.
A framework for rights-based, child-friendly schools

All social systems and agencies which affect children should be based on the principles of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is particularly true for schools which, despite
disparities in access across much of the world, serve a large percentage of children of primary
school age.

Such rights-based — or child-friendly — schools not only must help children realize their right
to a basic education of good quality. They are also needed to do many other things — help
children learn what they need to learn to face the challenges of the new century; enhance their
health and well-being; guarantee them safe and protective spaces for learning, free from violence
and abuse; raise teacher morale and motivation; and mobilize community support for education.

A rights-based, child-friendly school has two basic characteristics:

 It is a child-seeking school — actively identifying excluded children to get them enrolled

in school and included in learning, treating children as subjects with rights and State as
 duty-bearers with obligations to fulfill these rights, and demonstrating, promoting, and
helping to monitor the rights and well-being of all children in the community.
 It is a child-centred school — acting in the best interests of the child, leading to the
realisation of the childés full potential, and concerned both about the "whole" child
(including her health, nutritional status, and well-being) and about what happens to
children — in their families and communities - before they enter school and after they
leave it.
Above all, a rights-based, child-friendly school must reflect an environment of good quality
characterized by several essential aspects:

It is inclusive of children — it:

 Does not exclude, discriminate, or stereotype on the basis of difference.

 Provides education that is free and compulsory, affordable and accessible, especially to
families and children at risk.
 Respects diversity and ensures equality of learning for all children (e.g., girls, working
children, children of ethnic minorities and affected by HIV/AIDS, children with
disabilities, victims of exploitation and violence).
 Responds to diversity by meeting the differing circumstances and needs of children (e.g.,
based on gender, social class, ethnicity, and ability level).
It is effective for learning — it:

 Promotes good quality teaching and learning processes with individualizd instruction
appropriate to each child's developmental level, abilities, and learning style and with
active, cooperative, and democratic learning methods.
 Provides structured content and good quality materials and resources.
 Enhances teacher capacity, morale, commitment, status, and income — and their own
recognition of child rights.
 Promotes quality learning outcomes by defining and helping children learn what they
need to learn and teaching them how to learn.
It is healthy and protective of children — it:

 Ensures a healthy, hygienic, and safe learning environment, with adequate water and
sanitation facilities and healthy classrooms, healthy policies and practices (e.g., a school
free of drugs, corporal punishment, and harassment), and the provision of health services
such as nutritional supplementation and counseling.
 Provides life skills-based health education.
 Promotes both the physical and the psycho-socio-emotional health of teachers and
learners.
 Helps to defend and protect all children from abuse and harm.
 Provides positive experiences for children.
It is gender-sensitive — it:

 Promotes gender equality in enrolment and achievement.

 Eliminates gender stereotypes.
  Guarantees girl-friendly facilities, curricula, textbooks, and teaching-learning processes.
socializes girls and boys in a non-violent environment.
 Encourages respect for each others' rights, dignity, and equality.
It is involved with children, families, and communities — it is:

 Child-centred - promoting child participation in all aspects of school life.

 Family-focused — working to strengthen families as the child's primary caregivers and
educators and helping children, parents, and teachers establish harmonious relationships.
 Community-based - encouraging local partnership in education, acting in the community
for the sake of children, and working with other actors to ensure the fulfillment of
childrens' rights.
Experience is now showing that a framework of rights-based, child-friendly schools can be a
powerful tool for both helping to fulfill the rights of children and providing them an education of
good quality. At the national level, for ministries, development agencies, and civil society
organizations, the framework can be used as a normative goal for policies and programmes
leading to child-friendly systems and environments, as a focus for collaborative programming
leading to greater resource allocations for education, and as a component of staff training. At the
community level, for school staff, parents, and other community members, the framework can
serve as both a goal and a tool of quality improvement through localized self-assessment,
planning, and management and as a means for mobilizing the community around education and
child rights.

Related Documents

Child Friendly Schools Checklist

[Word]

Child Friendly Schools powerpoint presentation

[powerpoint]

Related Documents
Child Friendly Schools Checklist
[Word]

Child Friendly Schools powerpoint presentation

[powerpoint]

Updated: 25 May 2012

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Children worldwide need your help right now. Please donate what you can today.
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Child friendly schools and quality education
Child friendly schools strive for quality in the following five areas.
Quality learners: healthy, well-nourished, ready to learn, and supported by their family and
community
Quality content: curricula and materials for literacy, numeracy, knowledge, attitudes, and skills
for life
Quality teaching-learning processes: child-centred; (life) skills-based approaches, technology
Quality learning environments: policies and practices, facilities (classrooms, water, sanitation),
services (safety, physical and psycho-social health)
Quality outcomes: knowledge, attitudes and skills; suitable assessment, at classroom and
national levels
UNICEF Education

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CHARACTERISTICS OF A RIGHTS-BASED, CHILD-FRIENDLY SCHOOL

1. Reflects and realises the rights of every child -- cooperates with other partners to promote
and monitor the well-being and rights of all children; defends and protects all children from
abuse and harm (as a sanctuary), both inside and outside the school
2. Sees and understands the whole child, in a broad context -- is concerned with what
happens to children before they enter the system (e.g., their readiness for school in terms of
health and nutritional status, social and linguistic skills), and once they have left the classroom --
back in their homes, the community, and the workplace

3. Is child-centred -- encourages participation, creativity, self-esteem, and psycho-social well-

being; promotes a structured, child-centred curriculum and teaching-learning methods
appropriate to the child’s developmental level, abilities, and learning style; and considers the
needs of children over the needs of the other actors in the system

4. Is gender-sensitive and girl-friendly – promotes parity in the enrolment and achievement of

girls and boys; reduces constraints to constraints to gender equity and eliminates gender
stereotypes; provides facilities, curricula, and learning processes welcoming to girls

5. Promotes quality learning outcomes -- encourages children to think critically, ask questions,
express their opinions -- and learn how to learn; helps children master the essential enabling
skills of writing, reading, speaking, listening, and mathematics and the general knowledge and
skills required for living in the new century -- including useful traditional knowledge and the
values of peace, democracy, and the acceptance of diversity

6. Provides education based on the reality of children’s lives -- ensures that curricular content
responds to the learning needs of individual children as well as to the general objectives of the
education system and the local context and traditional knowledge of families and the community

7. Is flexible and responds to diversity -- meets differing circumstances and needs of children
(e.g., as determined by gender, culture, social class, ability level)

8. Acts to ensure inclusion, respect, and equality of opportunity for all children -- does not
stereotype, exclude, or discriminate on the basis of difference

9. Promotes mental and physical health – provides emotional support , encourages healthy
behaviours and practices, and guarantees a hygienic, safe, secure, and joyful environment
10. Provides education that is affordable and accessible -- especially to children and families
most at-risk

11. Enhances teacher capacity, morale, commitment, and status -- ensures that its teachers
have sufficient pre-service training, in-service support and professional development, status, and
income

12. Is family focused -- attempts to work with and strengthen families and helps children,
parents and teachers establish harmonious, collaborative partnerships

13. Is community-based -- strengthens school governance through a decentralised, community-

based approach; encourages parents, local government, community organisations, and other
institutions of civil society to participate in the management as well as the financing of
education; promotes community partnerships and networks focused on the rights and well-being
of children

INTRODUCTION

On any given day, more than one billion of the world’s children go to school. Whether they

sit in buildings, in tents or even under trees, ideally they are learning, developing and enriching

their lives. For too many children, though, school is not always a positive experience. Some endure

difficult conditions, like extremely hot or cold temperatures in the classroom or primitive

sanitation. Others lack competent teachers and appropriate curricula. Still others may be forced to

contend with discrimination, harassment and even violence. These conditions are not conducive

to learning or development, and no child should have to experience them. A school is considered

“child friendly” when it provides a safe, clean, healthy and protective environment for children.

At Child Friendly Schools, child rights are respected, and all children – including children who

are poor, disabled, living with HIV or from ethnic and religious minorities are treated equally.

A Child Friendly School is a school that recognizes and nurtures the achievement of

children's basic rights. Child Friendly Schools work with all commitment-holders, especially
parents/guardians of students, and values the many kinds of contributions they can make in seeking

all children to go to school, in the development of a learning environment for children and effective

learning quality according to the children's current and future needs. The learning environments

of Child Friendly Schools are characterized by equity, balance, freedom, solidarity, non-violence

and a concern for physical, mental and emotional health. These lead to the development of

knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, morals so that children can live together in a harmonious way.

A child friendly school nurtures a school-friendly child, support children for development and a

school-friendly community.

At the schools, teachers are trained on child rights, while teaching methods focus on a

child-centered approach. Lessons for children include essential life skills aimed at keeping them

safe and building the skills they will need to fulfill their potential and contribute fully to society.

In addition, Child Friendly Schools bring together students and members of the community to

develop and act on ways to improve their school’s environment.

CFS environments build upon the assets that children bring from their homes and

communities, respecting their unique backgrounds and circumstances. At the same time, the CFS

model compensates for any shortcomings in the home and community that might make it difficult

for children to enroll in school, attend regularly and succeed in their studies. For example, if there

is a food shortage in the community, school-feeding programmes can provide children both with

the nutrition they so critically need and the incentive to stay in school and get an education. The

CFS model also builds partnerships between schools and the community. Since children have the

right to be fully prepared to become active and productive citizens, their learning must be linked

to the wider community.

 The Education Section of UNICEF’s Programme Division introduced the Child Friendly

Schools (CFS) framework for schools that “serve the whole child” in 1999. AIR, (2009). Today,

the CFS initiative is UNICEF’s flagship education programme, and UNICEF supports

implementation of the CFS framework in 95 countries and promotes it at the global and regional

levels. Bernard, (2003). The framework for rights-based, child-friendly educational systems and

schools characterized as "inclusive, healthy and protective for all children, effective with children,

and involved with families and communities - and children" (Shaeffer, 1999). Within this

framework:

 The school is a significant personal and social environment in the lives of its students. A

child-friendly school ensures every child an environment that is physically safe,

emotionally secure and psychologically enabling.

 Teachers are the single most important factor in creating an effective and inclusive

classroom.

 Children are natural learners, but this capacity to learn can be undermined and sometimes

destroyed. A child-friendly school recognizes, encourages and supports children's growing

capacities as learners by providing a school culture, teaching behaviours and curriculum

content that are focused on learning and the learner.

 The ability of a school to be and to call itself child-friendly is directly linked to the support,

participation and collaboration it receives from families.

 Child-friendly schools aim to develop a learning environment in which children are

motivated and able to learn. Staff members are friendly and welcoming to children and

attend to all their health and safety needs.

 Child-friendly school must reflect an environment of good quality characterized by several

essential aspects:

Inclusive of children

 Does not exclude, discriminate, or stereotype on the basis of difference.

 Provides education that is free and compulsory, affordable and accessible, especially to

families and children at risk.

 Respects diversity and ensures equality of learning for all children (e.g., girls, working

children, children of ethnic minorities and affected by HIV/AIDS, children with

disabilities, victims of exploitation and violence).

 Responds to diversity by meeting the differing circumstances and needs of children (e.g.,

based on gender, social class, ethnicity, and ability level).

Effective for learning

 Promotes good quality teaching and learning processes with individualized instruction

appropriate to each child's developmental level, abilities, and learning style and with active,

cooperative, and democratic learning methods.

 Provides structured content and good quality materials and resources.

 Enhances teacher capacity, morale, commitment, status, and income — and their own

recognition of child rights.

 Promotes quality learning outcomes by defining and helping children learn what they need

to learn and teaching them how to learn.

Healthy and Protective of children

  Ensures a healthy, hygienic, and safe learning environment, with adequate water and

sanitation facilities and healthy classrooms, healthy policies and practices (e.g., a school

free of drugs, corporal punishment, and harassment), and the provision of health services

such as nutritional supplementation and counseling.

 Provides life skills-based health education.

 Promotes both the physical and the psycho-socio-emotional health of teachers and learners.

 Helps to defend and protect all children from abuse and harm.

 Provides positive experiences for children.

Gender-sensitive

 Promotes gender equality in enrolment and achievement.

 Eliminates gender stereotypes.

 Guarantees girl-friendly facilities, curricula, textbooks, and teaching learning processes.

socializes girls and boys in a non-violent environment.

 Encourages respect for each others' rights, dignity, and equality.

Involved with children, families, and communities

 Child-centred - promoting child participation in all aspects of school life.

 Family-focused — working to strengthen families as the child's primary caregivers and

educators and helping children, parents, and teachers establish harmonious relationships.
  Community-based - encouraging local partnership in education, acting in the community

for the sake of children, and working with other actors to ensure the fulfillment of childrens'

rights.

Experience is now showing that a framework of rights-based, child-friendly schools can be a

powerful tool for both helping to fulfill the rights of children and providing them an education of

good quality. At the national level, for ministries, development agencies, and civil society

organizations, the framework can be used as a normative goal for policies and programmes leading

to child-friendly systems and environments, as a focus for collaborative programming leading to

greater resource allocations for education, and as a component of staff training. At the community

level, for school staff, parents, and other community members, the framework can serve as both a

goal and a tool of quality improvement through localized self-assessment, planning, and

management and as a means for mobilizing the community around education and child rights.

Effective and high-quality learning environments

A quality learning environment promotes high-quality teaching of relevant knowledge and

skills through instruction that is adapted to meet students’ needs and that encourages children’s

active engagement, rather than relying on traditional rote learning approaches (AIR, 2009). When

teachers encourage student to be actively engaged in the learning process and to do well, and when

students are presented with interesting learning opportunities, they are more likely to stay in school

and succeed academically (Lockheed & Lewis, 2007). Children’s active participation in learning
reflects not only a child-centred approach to pedagogy but also the principle of democratic

participation. Further, in the recently revised manual for CFS, UNICEF describes child-centred

learning as follows (UNICEF, 2009): Learning is central to education and in line with the child-

centred principle, the child as learner is central to the process of teaching and learning. In other

words, the classroom process should not be one in which children are passive recipients of

knowledge dispensed by a sole authority, the teacher. Rather, it should be an interactive process

in which children are active participants in observing, exploring, listening, reasoning, questioning

and “coming to know.” This is at the heart of the classroom process in all Child Friendly school

models, and it is critical for teachers to be well trained in this pedagogy.

Factors that affect quality of education and Child Friendly Schools

Many schools serve communities that have a high prevalence of diseases related to

inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene, and where child malnutrition and other

underlying health problems are common. (WHO 2004c). The international policy environment

increasingly reflects these issues. Providing adequate levels of water supply, sanitation and

hygiene in schools is of direct relevance to the Millennium Development Goals1 on achieving

universal primary education, promoting gender equality and reducing child mortality. It is also

supportive of other goals, especially those on major diseases and infant mortality.
Lack of a safe and secure school environment, both within schools and for children who must

walk long distances to reach facilities

The framework, an intersectoral partnership to Focus Resources on Effective School Health,

provides the context for provision of safe water and sanitation facilities for children in

schools. Creating a healthy school environment by provision of safe water and sanitation facilities

within schools, to improve children’s health, well being and dignity, is likely to be most effective

where it is supported by other reinforcing strategies.

Insufficient numbers of trained teachers and textbooks

Teachers are the key to making schools “child-friendly”. They are trained on children’s

participation in school development and on how to effectively pass on this knowledge and

awareness to parents, community members and the students themselves.

The most important factor affecting the quality of education is the quality of the individual

teacher in the classroom. There is clear evidence that a teacher’s ability and effectiveness are the

most influential determinants of student achievement. Regardless of the resources that are

provided, rules that are adopted and curriculum that is revised, the primary source of learning for

students remains the classroom teacher. More critically, the importance of good teaching to the

academic success of students is intuitively obvious to any parent.

Once teachers, parents and community members are trained on child rights, they meet to assess

themselves, the school and community on what they lack and what needs to be improved. Most

schools organize activities for students, including Child Rights Clubs, which students run by

themselves.
 In addition, teachers are required to prepare individual files on each student, which include

information on the student’s socio-economic background as well as the student’s strengths and

weaknesses in school. This is considered one of the most important elements of the Child Friendly

School, since by having such information teachers become closer to each student and understand

much more about their individual needs or problems.

Lack of clean water and sanitation (e.g. separate toilets for girls and boys and hand-washing

facilities)

Water, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases are a huge burden in developing countries.

It is estimated that 88% of diarrhoeal disease is caused by unsafe water supply, and inadequate

sanitation and hygiene (WHO 2004c). Many schools serve communities that have a high

prevalence of diseases related to inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene, and where child

malnutrition and other underlying health problems are common.

It is not uncommon for schools, particularly those in rural areas, to lack drinking-water and

sanitation facilities completely, or for such facilities as do exist to be inadequate both in quality

and quantity. Schools with poor water, sanitation and hygiene conditions, and intense levels of

person-to-person contact, are high-risk environments for children and staff, and exacerbate

children's particular susceptibility to environmental health hazards.

Children’s ability to learn may be affected in several ways. Firstly, helminth infections,

affecting hundreds of millions of school-age children, can impair children’s physical development

and learning ability through pain and discomfort, competition for nutrients, and damage to tissues
and organs. Long-term exposure to chemical contaminants in water (e.g. lead) may impair learning

ability. Diarrhoeal diseases, malaria and helminth infections force many school children to be

absent from school. Poor environmental conditions in the classroom can also make both teaching

and learning very difficult. Teachers’ impaired performance and absence due to disease has a direct

impact on learning, and their work is made harder by the learning difficulties faced by the school

children.

Girls and boys are likely to be affected in different ways by inadequate water, sanitation

and hygiene conditions in schools, and this may contribute to unequal learning opportunities. For

example, lack of adequate, separate and secure toilets and washing facilities may discourage

parents from sending girls to school, and lack of adequate facilities for menstrual hygiene can

contribute to girls missing days at school or dropping out altogether at puberty.

Children who have adequate water, sanitation and hygiene conditions at school are more

able to integrate hygiene education into their daily lives, and can be effective agents for change in

their families and the wider community. Conversely, communities in which school children are

exposed to disease risk because of inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene at school are

themselves more at risk. Families bear the burden of their children’s illness due to bad conditions

at school.

Beliefs and practices that discourage girls' enrolment

The deployment patterns also have implications for gender equity. Across sub-Saharan

Africa, the enrolment and retention of girls in school is lower than that of boys. The under-

representation of girls tends to be greatest in rural areas and among the most disadvantaged

communities. While a number of measures can be shown to have an impact on the retention of
girls in school, one of the important factors is the presence of female teachers in the school

(Bernard, 2002).

Discrimination against orphans and girls within the education system and in classrooms

A study conducted by Case et al. (2004) revealed that orphans are less likely to be enrolled

than are non-orphans with whom they live. Consistent with Hamilton’s Rule, the theory that the

closeness of biological ties governs altruistic behavior, outcomes for orphans depend on the

relatedness of orphans to their household heads. The lower enrollment of orphans is largely

explained by the greater tendency of orphans to live with distant relatives or unrelated caregivers.

Poor health and nutritional status

Access to food, health care and education is recognized as a basic human right. This right

is enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) through which all member states of

the United Nations have committed themselves to attaining universal primary education and

eradicating hunger. Despite the high profile given to education within this international agenda to

eradicate poverty, UNICEF (2006) reports that in the poorest countries as many as 29% of boys

and 35% of girls are out of primary school and 70% of boys and 74% of girls are out of secondary

school. These children are excluded and invisible.

Children’s access to education and to learning is affected by the availability and quality of

schooling and by family characteristics such as socio-economic status and parental attitudes to

schooling. Access can also be influenced by child characteristics, such as aptitude, motivation and

behaviour, which can be negatively affected by poor health and nutritional status.
 Proximate determinants of health consist of the biological mechanisms that directly affect

the health, growth, and development of children. These include dietary intake, illness burden, and

exposure to environmental contaminants or hazards. Environmental hazards encompass risks

associated with the transmission of infectious agents or exposure to noxious materials such as

ambient smoke. Transmission of infectious agents, which can in turn have a direct influence on

children’s nutritional status, occurs through a number of routes, including the air, particularly with

the spread of respiratory diseases; dirty food, water, and hands, which can cause diarrhea and other

intestinal illnesses; skin and soil, the conduits of skin infections; and insects, which can spread

viral and parasitic diseases (Scrimshaw et al. 1968, Mosley and Chen 1984).

Improving Child Friendly Schools

Strategies include policies to provide a non-discriminatory safe and secure environment, skills

based health education, provision of health and other services, effective referral to external health

service providers and links with the community should be put in place. The framework provides

this context by positioning provision of safe water and sanitation among its four core components

that should be made available together for all schools.

It is therefore of some concern that a quarter of all children eligible to be in school are

malnourished (Galal et al., 2005) and that children in developing countries frequently carry an

additional burden of infectious diseases.

Subsidizing the education and health fees of orphans could become the main means of

promoting placement of orphans with extended families. The chief merit of this intervention is that

it supports investments in children without encouraging child labor. School subsidies for orphans

who are not in school would benefit orphans for four reasons: (a) subsidies are easy to monitor and
less prone to abuse or fraud than other direct subsidies; (b) education subsidies would give orphans

the opportunity to attend school when school fees are prohibitive; (c) in the short term, orphans

would be better integrated socially into the local community life; and (d) in the long term, orphans

would have marketable skills, making them more productive members of society. Subsidies for

orphans and other vulnerable children already enrolled in school would allow foster families to

save on education costs and increase their consumption of other goods and services, potentially

improving the entire household’s welfare. School subsidies have not yet been tried in the case of

Africa’s orphans, although provision for them exists in two ongoing World Bank operations in

Burundi and Zimbabwe. However, many countries have successfully used school subsidies to meet

other goals such as increasing access to education for girls. In Brazil, the Bolsa Escola Program

tries to reduce child labor and increase school participation through cash grants to families of

schoolage children (7–14 years old). The families receive the grants on the condition that children

attend school a minimum number of days per month (90 percent). Preliminary evidence shows that

school attendance has increased, dropouts have decreased, and the income gap between

beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries has decreased. The effect on child labor, however, has been

inconclusive because the municipality surveyed does not have a high incidence of child labor

(World Bank 2000a).

Education is the tool that can help break the pattern of gender discrimination and bring

lasting change for women in developing countries. Educated women are essential to ending gender

bias, starting by reducing the poverty that makes discrimination even worse in the developing

world. The most basic skills in literacy and arithmetic open up opportunities for better-paying jobs

for women. Uneducated women in rural areas of Zambia, for instance, are twice as likely to live

in poverty as those who have had eight or more years of education. The longer a girl is able to stay
in school, the greater her chances to pursue worthwhile employment, higher education, and a life

without the hazards of extreme poverty. Women who have had some schooling are more likely to

get married later, survive childbirth, have fewer and healthier children, and make sure their own

children complete school. They also understand hygiene and nutrition better and are more likely

to prevent disease by visiting health care facilities. The UN estimates that for every year a woman

spends in primary school, the risk of her child dying prematurely is reduced by 8 percent. Girls'

education also means comprehensive change for a society. As women get the opportunity to go to

school and obtain higher-level jobs, they gain status in their communities. Status translates into

the power to influence their families and societies.

The presence of female teachers in a school can help to make the school environment a

safer place for girls. Many girls in Africa are forced to drop out of schools because school

administrators are insensitive to gender issues, including sexual abuse and intimidation (PANA,

2003). In addition, the presence of females in positions of responsibility and leadership in schools

is an important factor in creating gender role models.

The hygiene behaviours that children learn at school, made possible through a combination of

hygiene education and suitable water and sanitation facilities, are skills that they are likely to

maintain as adults and pass on to their own children.

School feeding programme as a means of improving Child Friendly Schools

Two main strategies have been used to improve the nutritional status, attendance rates and

cognition of school age children

1. The provision of meals and snacks for eating in school

2. Food for Education (FFE) interventions in which food given at school may be taken home.
 These strategies are underpinned by hypothetical pathways that link the provision of school

meals with improved education access and achievement, in two ways. Firstly, educational

outcomes may improve through increased enrolment and time in school due to reducing the cost

to the parent of sending a child to school and benefits to the family from providing take home food.

Secondly, educational outcomes may improve through enhanced attention, cognition and

behaviour resulting from relief of hunger and from better nutritional status (if the quality and

quantity of food is adequate and the supply continues for some time).

Grantham-McGregor and Walker (1998) reviewed studies showing associations between

current nutrition and school performance (enrollment, attendance, achievement, classroom

behavior, and school drop-out). They found a large number of studies that showed children who

were stunted, anaemic, or iodine deficient had poorer school achievement levels and attendance

than other children. Fewer studies had examined the experience of hunger, missing breakfast, or

poor dietary intakes but most found associations with school performance.

In a more recent review of the evidence Grantham-McGregor (2005) notes that further

associations have been reported between experience of hunger and children’s psychosocial

function or behaviour, academic attainment and attendance. She points out, however, that most

studies have failed to control adequately for all possible socio-economic background variables

associated with hunger, which are likely to independently affect children’s school performance.

Rigorous short-term studies of missing breakfast have generally shown detrimental effects on

children's cognition whereas studies of providing breakfast have shown benefits particularly in

malnourished children. But classroom conditions may modify the effects of breakfast on behavior.

Grantham-McGregor found that there have been very few longer-term studies of the effects of

giving school meals and nearly all involved breakfast. She notes that it has proved extremely
difficult to run robust trials of school feeding, partly because feeding children tends to be an

emotional and politically sensitive topic, which makes it difficult to have children in a control

group. She found only one longer term randomized controlled trial, conducted by Powell et al.

(1998), which found benefits associated with attendance and arithmetic performance. This study

is reviewed further below. Less robust studies comparing participants with non-participants or

comparing matched schools have found benefits of receiving breakfast but there was bias due to

self-selection and schools may have been inadequately matched. Grantham-McGregor concludes

that most studies of giving breakfast have found benefits to school performance through increased

attendance and retention. However, many had serious design problems, were short-term, and were

not conducted in the poorest countries. She argues that in order to advise policy makers correctly,

there is an urgent need to run long-term randomized controlled trials of giving school meals in

poor countries and to determine the effects of age and nutrition status of the children, the quality

of the school, and the timing of the meal. She emphasizes that the special needs of orphans should

also be considered.

The study by Powell et al. (1998) demonstrated that hunger during school may prevent

children in developing countries from benefiting from education. Compared to school feeding

programmes, Food for Education (FFE) includes a broader range of interventions designed to

improve enrollment, attendance, community-school linkages, and learning. The United Nations

World Food Programme (WFP) is the largest organizer of FFE throughout the world. In 2003 WFP

provided food to schools in 70 countries, accounting for more than 15 million children. Once

school feeding programmes have been launched, complementary activities such as de-worming

and HIV prevention education can ‘piggyback’ these programmes to maximise the benefits of food

aid. (World Food Programme, 2003). FFE involves the distribution of food to “at-risk” children
(usually girls, orphans or other vulnerable children) who attend school regularly as a stimulus to

increase participation, and to help offset some of the opportunity and cash costs of educating

children. The food may be locally grown and purchased or contributed by aid donors. Where FFE

also includes food-for-work, targeted to teachers or parents involved in activities to improve

schooling outcomes, it can be used to boost efforts to improve both the demand (enrollment and

attendance) for education and the supply (quality) of education, which are of course interrelated

and mutually reinforcing.

Levinger (2005) points out, however, that to be effective FFE interventions must reflect

local education supply and demand realities. She argues that if such responses result in

contextually appropriate designs then FFE can be a powerful tool for development but warns that

the potential of FFE can only be realized if a full analysis of the supply and demand blockages is

undertaken. For example, where educational quality is high but demand low FFE can best be used

to improve recruitment, but where quality is low but demand high it needs to be used to modify

what happens in the classroom.

The importance of school feeding programmes is discussed by Levitsky (2005) who notes

that the most robust finding from the evaluations of these programmes is that they increase

attendance and asks why governments have not used this evidence to initiate more school feeding

programmes for the poor. Levisky argues that there is a need for more research to make similar

links between school feeding programmes and their long-term financial and social benefits in order

to build cogent economic and political arguments that will influence policy and funding decisions.
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