Socio-Economic Determinants of Financing of School Feeding Practices among Primary and Secondary School Children in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract

The significance of school feeding to school children cannot be over-emphasized.
Different school feeding programs provide different benefits that could support
students’ retention in schools, increase enrolment and attendance, increase
academic performance and enhanced participatory learning. The study assessed
socioeconomic determinants of school feeding financing in primary and
secondary schools. Specifically, the study examined association between socio-
economic status and food financing status in primary and secondary schools. The
study adopted a cross-sectional research design whereby a sample of 519
households was selected. Quantitative data were analysed with the aid of IBM-
Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) whereby descriptive statistics
were computed to obtain frequencies and percentage distributions of the
responses. A forward stepwise binary logistic regression model was used to
assess relationship between socio-economic characteristics and provision of
sufficient payment for school meals. The results of forward stepwise binary
logistic regression indicated that number of girls in school in the family, lowest
and second wealth quantile and fewer school boys were significantly related with
provision of sufficient payment for school meals in primary schools at the p<0.05
significance level, while employment status, sex, income, wealth quantile and
number of children in and out of school were significantly related with provision
of sufficient payment for school meals in secondary schools at the p<0.05
significance level. The study concludes that socioeconomic factors influence
ability of parents to afford payments for school meals in both primary and
secondary schools. Based on this, it is recommended that development
practitioners in the education sector should provide enabling environment
including facilitation of income generating activities among parents with
children in primary and secondary schools in order to improve their income
status which will eventually enable them to have the ability to finance school
feeding. The stakeholders in the education sector should create awareness to
parents of school children on the importance of financing school feeding
programs for their children. Local Government Authorities and otherstakeholders should develop mechanisms that will ensure effective financing of the school feeding programme in primary and secondary schools.