Free school meals are one of the most effective education policies in the world, improving attendance, reducing dropouts, and increasing graduation and access to higher education across countries. Evidence shows they deliver large long-term benefits for children and society, with returns that far outweigh the cost of providing them.
Free school meals feed more than 400 million children worldwide, making them the largest social programme in history. But how effective are they? And should even more governments provide free school meals? In this episode of Economics Unpacked, we break down the economics of school feeding programmes.
Drawing on evidence from Colombia and a review covering 25 countries, we speak with economists Biniam Bedasso and Fabio Sánchez on the long-term impacts of school meal programmes and education, university, incomes, health, and more.
Economics Unpacked brings cutting-edge economic research to the public by breaking down complex policies with world-leading experts. If you’re interested in economics, public policy, or international development, this series is for you!
Transcript
What is the biggest social programme in the history of the world? The answer might surprise you: school meals. Free school meals now reach over 400 million children, a rise of around 80 million since the pandemic. But do they work? Are they worth the money that governments spend on them?
Welcome to Economics Unpacked, where we speak to experts to explain the economics behind policies that affect millions of people around the world. School feeding programmes provide food at school, typically breakfast or lunch, sometimes a snack, and in some places take-home rations if kids attend school. Designs vary, but the goal is similar: reduce hunger and improve nutrition today and keep kids in school to help them learn and grow into better educated, more skilled adults.
And school meal programmes are nothing new. Enter our first expert, Biniam Bedasso.
Biniam Bedasso: They have been part and parcel of the nation building process in the developed world. If you look at the history of of education in Europe, in Britain, in the Netherlands, governments started providing school meals in the early 20th century as at the same time as they were expanding universal primary education. So it's not a new thing. It's part and parcel of civilization. It's part and parcel of nation building.
But to know whether they work, we need some way of comparing children who receive school meals with those who do not. But the problem is if every child in a country gets a school meal, you don't have a group to compare to. You don't have a counterfactual. To find that, let's go to Colombia.
Fabio Sánchez: My name is Fabio Sánchez. I am located in Bogotá, Colombia.
In Colombia in the early 2010s, the school feeding programme fed around 1 in 10 children. But that changed.
Fabio Sánchez: In 2010, the government decided that it wanted to expand the programme. By 2019, it was covering 75% of the students. So it was a huge expansion.
This expansion over 7 years allowed Fabio and colleagues to compare the children who had free school meals with other similar children who did not.
Fabio Sánchez: The programme to reduce the dropout rate more or less in 25% compared with the students that didn't receive the programmes. The annual dropout rate is about 6% and the students that had this programme have a dropout rate about 4.5%.
But that was just the first year. What stands out about the Colombia study is how long they track the progress of the children.
Fabio Sánchez: So we are able to see these students over a time span of 12 years. Students that enter into secondary education, let's say at 11 years in 2011 and we are able to see whether they are not in higher education in 2023.
And what does this long run tracking show?
Fabio Sánchez: Students that enter in secondary education, only six out of 10 students graduated from high school. After the programme, the student that received the programme is eight out of 10, meaning that increase the graduation rate by 20 percentage point. It's one of the highest impact that any educational programme has.
And they go even further looking at the chances of going to college or university.
Fabio Sánchez: The student that had the programme entered into her education at a 40% rate, meaning that there is a 7% point increase in access to higher education the next year after graduation.
The study concludes school feeding programmes can contribute to long-term education success and this lasts for the rest of students lives.
Fabio Sánchez: The wages from somebody that went to higher education is twice as much as the wage of somebody that drop out from the school. So is a programme allows somebody to get into high education, of course that is transforming the life of that particular person.
But what about other places where free school meals have been tried back to Biniam.
Biniam Bedasso: So our study compiled impact evaluation evidence from over 25 countries conducted in the past 15 years. And we specifically looked at the impact of school meals on key educational outcomes. And by key educational outcomes we mean enrolment, attendance and test scores.
And what does the multi-country study find across low- and middle-income countries?
Biniam Bedasso: Our analysis of the evidence over the past 15 years shows that school meals generally had a positive impact on all educational outcomes, on enrolment on attendance and on test scores.
And this has a long-term impact.
Biniam Bedasso: Children that have access to school meals are likely to attend school one more day in two weeks than children that do not have access to school meals. And that adds up over months, terms and years. So it's not a small thing. It's very significant and it's more significant for children who are vulnerable in other aspects.
So, school meals have been shown to work on attendance, on grades, on graduation rates in a variety of countries around the world. But the policy debate is not over.
Biniam Bedasso: The question is not whether school meals are good policy or a bad policy. The question is how to deliver them sustainably, how to do them efficiently without compromising nutritional quality. And that's the question most governments and organisations providing school meals in low- and middle income countries are currently grappling with.
In another study, Biniam and colleagues write: spending levels vary widely and many programmes remain underfunded. They find that poorer countries spend only a sixth on school meals than wealthier countries. And yet school feeding programmes are among the best investments a country can make.
Back to Fabio in Colombia.
Fabio Sánchez: For every peso that the government spends, the benefit for the students is 4.5 pesos. That without counting what is the benefit for the whole society, just measuring the benefit for the students that receive the programmes. I think the decision to expand the programme has been one of the best decision in related to education in Colombia in the last years.
And that return is on the lower end compared with findings in other settings. So what about those who are still sceptical?
Fabio Sánchez: If a sceptical person ask me is the programme expensive? I say no. Why? Because the benefits are much higher than the cost.
We've learned that free school meals lead to fewer dropouts, better grades, better graduation rates, and these benefits far outweigh the costs. It's for this reason that Biniam and colleagues call it multiple wins on one plate.
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