School Meals and Classroom

Performance: Evidence from India

Farzana Afridi, Bidisha Barooah and Rohini Somanathan

Delhi School of Economics, 2nd August 2013

MotivationThree possible mechanisms by which school

meals improve learning improved enrolment and attendancehigher nutritional status and long-term cognitiongreater attention/concentration in classroom tasks

We study the effect of school meals on attention in classroom task as opposed to cognition

School meals and classroom attention

Possible positive effects Attention span and short-term memory Behavior- aggressive, attention-deficit,

hyperactivity Hunger alleviation

Possible negative effects Pressure on school resources (teacher time, space)Post-lunch dip

Mid-day Meals in DelhiTime Grades Program Features

1997-2003 1 to 5 Packaged food (biscuits)

July 2003 1 to 5 Cooked meals. 300 calories and 8-10 grams of protein per day per child

October 2006 1 to 5 450 calories and 8-10 grams of protein per day per child

29th Sep 2009 Extended to 6-8

Cooked meals. Exact date of implementation unanticipated. Norms (each child per day):1-5: 450 calories and 8-10 grams of protein6-8: 700 calories and 9-12 grams of protein

Study Design- I

Conducted tests of attention in grades 5 and 7 in 18 randomly selected public schools in Delhi.

Two phases: Aug- Nov 2009; Feb- Apr 2010

Two sessions of solving mazes in one school day- beginning and end of day.

Students were given to solve the same mazes in both phases.

Study Design-IIPhase 1 dates of survey

Grade

Phase 1 Meal

status

Phase 2 Meal

status

Treatment status

1st August to 8th September, 2009

7 No Yes Treatment

5 Yes Yes Placebo

8th October- 3rd November, 2009

7 Yes Yes Control

5 Yes Yes Placebo

Study Design- III: MazesMaze Number Difficulty level for Grade 5

1 (Practice) 1

2 (Practice) 1

3 2

4 3

5 4

Used in experiments to measure effort (Gneezy et al, Nierdle et al)

Requires no long-term cognitive skills such as verbal ability or problem solving or reading and writing skills

Data

1213 students of grade 5 and 7 solved maze puzzles in Phase 1

Panel data of scores in mazes for 827 students

Score = # of mazes correct/ 3

Other controls: heights and weights, curriculum based test on math and language , dietary intake of that day, socio-economic indicators of a subsample of 10 students per grade

Summary statistic (Full Sample)

Uptake of School Meals

Baseline school summary statistics

Control Schools (N=7)

Treatment School (N=10)

(1) (2)Enrolment in Grade 5 (all sections) 59.57 59.30

(9.413) (9.459)Enrolment in Grade 7 (all sections) 249.29 150.60

(56.018) (15.995)Attendance Rate in Grade 5 (all sections) 0.89 0.82

(0.023) (0.040)Attendance Rate in Grade 7 (all sections) 0.84 0.81

(0.030) (0.021)Grade 5 Score in Math and Language 3.13 2.88

(0.223) (0. 121)Grade 7 Score in Math and Language 4.19 3.93

(0.131) (0.341)Students able to solve IQ question 0.20 0.18

(0.019) (0.018)Time taken in distribution of MDM (in minutes) 56.42 29

(9.923) (6.741)Recess Duration (in minutes) 24.28 22.5

(2.02) (1.53)

Baseline Grade 7 student summary statistics

Baseline Grade 7 student summary statistics

Maze Score (averaged over two sessions)

Empirical Strategy

Identification of treatment and control groups based on Unanticipated introduction of school mealsRandom date of first visit to schools

Intention to Treat EstimatorTreatment status is by schools and not individuals

Estimating Equation

MeanScoreijp = β0 + β1 Phase2p+ β2(Treatj*Phase2p) + Xi + µj + eijp

MeanScoreijp is the average of two sessions of the score of child i in Grade 7 of school j in Phase p.

Phase 2p is the dummy for Phase 2

Treatj is the dummy variable for schools that were surveyed before 29th September.

β2 is the treatment effect.

µj is the school FE. We also use individual FE.

Grade 5 acts as a placebo test

Effect of school meals on average scores

Robust SE in parenthesis. Bootstrapped SE in square bracketsSchool FE has controls such as BMI for age, gender, age and ability to solve IQ questionResults unchanged for unbalanced panel school FE

Effect of school meals by sessions

Session 1 is the session conducted before school meals were served on the day of survey. Session 2 is the session conducted after the lunch break was over. The average gap between the 2 sessions is 1 ½ hours.

Effect on Nutritional Status and Maze Score by Gender

Child Fixed Effects

Student Characteristics by Gender

DiscussionOverall positive effect on tests of

attention/concentration due to school meals

Running the same analysis for all students, results remain unchanged

Positive effect in pre-meal sessions in all schools

Positive effect in post-lunch break session in schools with higher scores in math and language

Significant gains in BMI for girls