Literacy & School Feeding in Liberia

• In Event: Hungry Minds: Evaluation of School Feeding and Literacy Interventions

Proposal

While primary education is free and compulsory in Liberia, over 15 percent of children 6 to 14 years-old are not attending school and only 69 percent of students complete grade 6 (Liberia Ministry of Education, 2016). Food insecurity and malnutrition are also widespread – 49 percent of Liberians are food insecure and nearly a third of children are stunted due to malnutrition (WFP, 2013).
To address low enrollment and high food insecurity, Save the Children implemented the Liberia Empowerment through Attendance, Reading, and Nutrition (LEARN) program (2017–2022) with funding from the United States Department of Agriculture and in partnership with Mercy Corps and Liberia’s Ministry of Education, Ministry of Agriculture, and Ministry of Health.
LEARN program activities fall into three intervention packages: (1) school feeding; (2) literacy boost; and (3) school health and nutrition. The LEARN interventions are designed to improve the literacy of school-age children by enhancing the quality of instruction and increasing student attentiveness and attendance; and increase the use of health and dietary practices by enhancing knowledge of health and hygiene best practices, upgrading sanitation facilities, and improving food safety and storage systems.
This paper presents findings from a mixed methods evaluation to measure LEARN progress centered around program relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, and impact. Both quantitative and qualitative data are collected from beneficiaries, implementers, and stakeholders to gather outcome data as well as multiple perspectives to understand program implementation and mechanisms of change. A randomized controlled trial together with difference-in-differences framework is conducted to estimate the causal effect of LEARN interventions on student literacy and health knowledge and practices.
At endline, we found that the combined led to improvement in reading comprehension scores, particularly among boys. Boys in schools that received the combined package schools were 6.3 percentage points more likely than boys in comparison schools to read with comprehension. In contrast, we do not find any similar impact on reading comprehension skills for girls who received the combined package. Effects on any of the intervention schools show a 1 percentage point increase in reading comprehension relative to the comparison group for girls but a 4-percentage point increase for boys. This effect was likely driven by the ability of combined packages to increase readers among boys; null effects were found on readership among girls. However, qualitative data indicated that the school feeding project was popular across all school communities. All respondent types in all communities credited the initiative with increasing both attendance and learning. As interest in exploring synergies between education, health, and nutrition interventions grows, the lack of research on how and under what conditions these programs can foster learning creates an ever more urgent need for a rigorous evaluation of their effectiveness. Our study will produce a detailed understanding of how an integrated education, health, and nutrition program impacts student outcomes.

Authors

• Michaela Gulemetova, AIR

• Uttara Balakrishnan, American Institutes for Research