Educational impact of a school breakfast programme in rural Peru

Evaluation of the educational impact of a school breakfast program implemented in rural schools in the highlands of Peru. Specifically, measurements in weight, height, school enrollment, dropout, attendance, cognitivPreue activities, and achievement in mathematics, vocabulary and reading comprehension in treatment (breakfast) and contrast (no breakfast) groups are compared.

The results show no positive effects of breakfast consumption on height for age, body mass index, memory or achievement. Positive effects were found on hemoglobin, drop-out rates and attendence. The lack of effects in achievement tests could be explained because the time students spent in the classroom with their teachers went down after the school breakfast program was introduced and/or because of the differential drop-out rate in the treatment and contrast groups (the drop-out rate was higher in the contrast group during the three years prior to the evaluation).

Evaluation was requested by international agencies funding the program and may be of interest to a wider audience of evaluators and researchers interested in determinants of educational performance in poor areas in developing countries. [adapted from authors]