School meal programs An impact assessment

Farzana Afridi Indian Statistical Institute, Economics Department, Delhi

ADB, Manila (July 11-12, 2012)

School meal program in India

Every public primary school mandated to implement program in 1995.

All enrolled children provided with a free meal, cooked out of 100 grams of wheat or rice grains on each school day on school premises.
Those unable to due to financial constraints, distributed free grain rations

(rural areas) per month subject to a minimum monthly attendance of 80% per student or served ready to eat meals (viz. Delhi) on each school day on school premises.

Nation-wide transition to cooked meals completed in 2003. Largest school feeding program in the world in terms of number of potential

beneficiaries.

Research questions
1. Impact of cooked meals on

short-term nutrition (daily food consumption)

Child Welfare Programs and Child Nutrition: Evidence from a Mandated School Meal Program. Journal of Development Economics, 92(2):152-165, July 2010

student partcipation in school (enrollment and attendance)

The Impact of School Meals on School Participation in Rural India. Journal of Development Studies, 47(11): 1636-1656, November 2011

2. Impact of the design of program on student participation in school

The role of design in school subsidy programs: Evidence from mid day meals in India (with Bidisha Barooah and Rohini Somanathan)

1. Impact on short-term nutrition Identification of Program Impact

Randomly chosen date of village interview yielded primary school age children in some villages recalling their previous days food intake for a school day while in other villages the previous day was a non-school day. Sub sample of these children revisited to obtain their food consumption data on both school and non-school days.

1. Impact on short-term nutrition -

Methodology
C 0 1 D 2C 3 C 4 j k ijk
T ijk A j M ijk s 1 M iks
T Cijk

total daily intake of nutrient i by child j in village k school attendance on reference day nutrient intake from a school meal sum of school meal transfer of nutrient i to siblings s in the primary school age group

DjA
M Cijk
M Ciks s 1 N

Methodology (contd.)

Instrumental Variables Analysis

Instruments for:

DjA

- whether the reference day was school day

T Cijk - average consumption of nutrients in a school on

the last school day x reference day was school day

1. Impact on short-term nutrition - Results

Impact of School Meal Program on Total Daily Nutrient Intake: Crosssectional Analysis
Specification Coefficient on Quantity of Nutrient Intake from School Meal

Calories (1) 2SLS (2) 2SLS (3) 2SLS 0.49*** (0.163) 0.70** (0.272) 0.66** (0.269)

Carbohydrates 0.52*** (0.154) 0.73*** (0.260) 0.75*** (0.251)

Protein 0.58*** (0.157) 0.81*** (0.279) 0.75*** (0.271)

Calcium 0.69 (0.445) 0.55 (0.648) 0.25 (0.603)

Iron 0.96*** (0.232) 1.15*** (0.324) 0.77* (0.386)

N 901 898 901

(1)IV: School day and Average nutrient consumed in school x attendance on reference day (2)IV: School day and School meal offer x dummy for school day (3)IV: School day and Month of interview x dummy for school day Note: Robust standard errors in parentheses. * Significant at 10 per cent, ** 5 per cent and ***1 per cent

Results (contd.)

Impact of School Meal Program on Total Daily Nutrient Intake: Community Fixed Effects
Specification Calories (4) 2SLS-FE 0.86** (0.336) 1.12** (0.470) Coefficient on Quantity of Nutrient Intake from School Meal Carbohydrates 1.01*** (0.299) 1.24** (0.425) Protein 0.61* (0.304) 1.09* (0.528) Calcium -2.74 (1.663) -3.45 (2.638) Iron -0.58 (0.536) 0.84 (0.535) N 243

(5) 2SLS-FE

243

community dummies (11 villages within 5 communities) (4) school day and Average nutrient consumed in school x dummy for school day (5) school day and School meal offer x dummy for school day
Note: Robust standard errors in parentheses. * Significant at 10 per cent, ** 5 per
cent and ***1 per cent

Results (contd.)

Impact of School Meal Program on Total Daily Nutrient Intake: Individual Fixed Effects
Specification Calories (6) OLS-FE 0.76* (0.404) Coefficient on Quantity of Nutrient Intake from School Meal Carbohydrates 0.66 (0.399) Protein 0.62 (0.443) Calcium 0.15 (0.671) Iron 0.43 (0.342) N 546

Note: Robust standard errors in parentheses. * Significant at 10 per cent, ** 5 per cent and ***1 per cent

2. Impact on school participation Identification of program impact

Transition to cooked meals (from foodgrain

distribution) began in July 2003 in the rural survey area

Some schools transitioned in July, 2003 Remaining schools transitioned between July

and December 2003

2. Impact on school participation

Methodology
D1 = Average participation in December Average participation in July in schools whose participation status changed between July and December
D2 = Average participation in December Average participation in July in schools whose participation status did NOT change between July and December Difference-in-differences= D1 D2

2. Impact on school participation Results

Note: Includes controls for baseline school characteristics interacted with December dummy. Standard errors corrected for clustering on the school reported in parentheses. Missing data for no girl enrollment in grade five. * Significant at 10 per cent, ** 5 per cent and ***1 per cent

3. Impact of Program Design - Program background

Nearly 80% of all public primary schools in Delhi are run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), accounting for almost 85% of all public primary school enrollments in the city. Prior to 2002-03, ready-to-eat snacks was served in MCD schools such as biscuits, roasted grams, wheat puffs and fruity bread (but mostly biscuits). Provision of cooked meals started in July 2003.

Phased implementation of cooked meal scheme Phase 1: between July and August 2003 Phase 2: between September and November 2003
In Phase 1, local service providers were selected on the basis of availability of infrastructure and distance from schools. In 2004-05 quality of cooked meals improved by weeding out sub-standard service providers.

3. Impact of Program Design Program background: Costs

Providers re-imbursed at the rate of Rs. 2 per child by Municipal

Corporation of Delhi (MCD) under both cooked and ready to eat program.

The raw foodgrains (or foodgrain content of ready to eat items) and

transport costs related to foodgrain procurement were fully subsidized by the federal government under both programs.

Schools were mandated to provide atleast 300 kcal per child per day

(or 100 grams of raw wheat) in cooked meals and approximatey 265 kcal (or 75.6 grams of raw wheat) in the regime of packaged foods.

10 paise or less than 5% difference in per day per child costs. Annual

costs per child are comparable if regularity of both programs is similar.

3. Impact of Program Design Methodology

Use the staggered implementation of cooked meals. Almost 50% of the sampled schools implemented cooked

meals program before September 2003 and the other half, after September 2003.
Treatment group: schools which transitioned before

September 2003 (in July or August 2003) .

Control group: schools which transitioned after

September 2003 (in October or November 2003).

3. Impact of Program Design Estimation strategy

Aicjmt = + 0 Cookedjmt + 1Tt + 2 Xm + 3 ict + i + icjmt
A icjmt : total number of classes attended by student i in grade c in school j in month m and academic year t divided by the total number of classes that the student could have potentially attended in school j at m, t Cookedjmt : 0 for all m,t before j transitioned to cooked meals and 1 for all m, t after the cooked meals were initiated Tmt : 1 if observation is recorded for months in 2003-04 academic year Xm : 1 if observation is recorded for the month of February, 0 for September ict : student is grade c in academic year t i : unobservable, time-invariant individual characteristics

3. Impact of Program Design - Results

3. Impact of Program Design - Results

3. Impact of Program Design - Results

3. Impact of Program Design - Results

Conclusions
On-site school meal program can be more effective in

improving nutritional intakes and daily participation rates of intended beneficiaries than an off-site program.
Distribution of foodgrains allowed for sharing of the transfer

among family members; on-site cooked meals program was better targeted, potentially reducing leakage of benefits to nonenrolled children and adults in household
Change in program design itself can lead to significant

improvement in average outcomes

Food grain distribution was designed to be conditional on a

minimum monthly attendance rate of a student but such conditionalities are rarely imposed by public schools. Transitioning to a program that by design required regular attendance to receive program benefits automatically induced an attendance conditionality Less portability (2002-03), better taste and more variety of meals (2004-05) increased program benefits within limited budget

Conclusions
Need to build in rigorous impact evaluation into

program design.

Non-randomized program implementation requires

innovative approaches to estimate program impact. Natural experiments Instrumental variables

Data constraints