Examination of the school feeding programme and school dropout in selected beneficiary schools in the Effutu Municipality

Abstract

The study examined the school feeding programme and school dropout in selected beneficiary schools in the Effutu Municipality. In achieving the purpose of the study, the qualitative approach with a case study design was employed. Purposive and convenient sampling were used to select a sample of 15 respondents which included 3 head teachers, 3 teachers, 6 dropouts and 3 parents of the three selected beneficiary schools. Data was gathered through the use of interviews and focused group discussion and was analysed according to themes. The results of the study revealed that with the inception of the school feeding programme, truancy and absenteeism has been reduced a bit thereby increasing enrolment. However, it was also revealed that in spite of the implementation of the school feeding programme, there is still school dropouts in the selected beneficiary schools due the pupils’ desire for money, pregnancy, learning difficulties, lack of parental support and care, the educational level of parents and small quantity and poor quality of the food served in the schools. The study concluded that, the factors associated with school dropout should be tackled holistically for the SFP to achieve its goal. The study also recommended that, teachers and other stakeholders in the Municipality should focus more on sex education, while parents also should focus on home monitoring of their children especially the females to avoid pregnancy as it was captured as one of the causes of school dropout in the three selected beneficiary schools, parents’ should strengthen their parental duties by providing for their children's school needs, elders of the community should ensure that the measures put in place to support the SFP are strictly adhered to by members of the community especially the by-laws to help reduce dropout in the selected schools and there should be adequate support from parents, government, non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations to help support the SFP to achieve its goal of reducing dropouts.