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Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:

The Key to Escape from Poverty

228

assistance to 300,000 pupils during the school year 2014/2015 and 112,000 pupils (609

schools) for the current school year.

Implementation of the activity:

The activity is implemented in partnership with the

Ministry of National Education (MEN).

Format:

On the basis of its availability, WFP provides assistance in food and/or cash, which

allows schoolchildren to benefit from one daily meal at school with 2 lunches (Full days:

Tuesday and Thursday) and 3 breakfasts (the other 3 days: Monday, Wednesday and Friday).

Management:

At the school level, the school canteen (Procurement, Storage / Food

Management, Meal Preparation) is operated by the School Management Committee (CGE), in

which parents of pupils are heavily involved. The overall supervision of the program is

carried out by the Division of School Canteens (DCaS) of MEN, in conjunction with WFP and

other partners.

Monitoring:

Regular monitoring of this program is carried out by canteen officers of the

Education and Training Inspectorates (IEF) under the supervision of the canteen officers of

the Inspection of Academies (IA), in conjunction with theWFP sub-offices at the regional level

and at the national level.

Innovation:

The innovative approach of the school feeding program centers around (1) the

involvement of parents in the canteen which improves general parents’ participation in

school management (2) create and establish a very local supply chain for the provision of

WFP’s food support to the local economies (e.g. the ‘Purchase fromAfricans for Africa’ project

or ‘Community fields’ both initiatives that help local food production) (3) the introduction of

the "cash & voucher" method of supplying school canteens through food vouchers from local

retailers.

Evaluation

: A randomized trial was used to evaluate the impact of the school feeding

programs on the performance of rural primary schools in Senegal. In the four poorest regions

of the country, 120 schools that do not have school canteens were selected and were assigned

randomly and evenly (60 each) to control and treatment groups. The results showed that the

school feeding program has a

positive impact on the overall score of the student

s (5.51 points)

with a large impact on younger students’ (second grade) scores. The existence of a student-

parents association improves the impact of feeding. No impact was found when the class size

is higher than 40 students. The

impact on cognitive skills

is greater in younger students (aged

between 6 and 7 years). All results are significant at the 5% level. However, school feeding

does not significantly improve the internal efficiency of public primary schools: dropout and

repetition have certainly reduced, but no results are statistically significant. On the

nutritional aspect, canteens have

positive external effects on dietary

intake of children.

Box 7 Impact Evaluation of School Grants and Education Quality in Senegal

Under the Second Quality Education for All (QEFA2) project, the government provided grants

directly to schools under a results-based framework. The initiative entailed enhanced focus

on learning, use of innovative teaching practices, improved management and closer