SCHOOL MEALS AND STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN URBAN INDIA: DISTRIBUTIONAL IMPLICATIONS AND PROGRAM DESIGN

Farzana Afridi (Indian Statistical Institute)Bidisha Barooah (Delhi School of Economics)Rohini Somanathan (Delhi School of Economics)

UNSW Workshop (September 16, 2011)

Motivation:India in comparison with other developing nations

Lags behind in education and health outcomes compared to countries with comparable economic growth rates

% Primary school enrolment1

% of under-fives who are severely or moderately

underweight2

% of under-fives who are severely or moderately

stunted3

% GDP growth rate4

India 83 48 48 8.3China 100 7 15 10.1Brazil 94 2 7 5.71: UNICEF2: NCHS/WHO 2003-20083: WHO 2003-20084: World Bank

Motivation:Education and Health Indicators in India

Low levels of education accompany poor health indicators even in urban India

Percentage of children never enrolled (age 6-10 years)Boys Girls

India 19.3 20.79Rural 20.69 23.25Urban 17.1 16.78

Delhi 16.26 17.17Source: NFHS-3

UnderweightIndia 40.4Rural 43.7Urban 30.1

Delhi 24.9Source: NFHS-3

43.2

Malnutrition in children below the age of 3Stunted

44.447.237.4

Introduction: Background Large scale on-site school meal program

mandated in all public primary schools since 1995 Transition from ready to eat snacks to cooked

meals in 2003. Insignificant change in cost of the program

Research question:1. Can change in design of school subsidy programs

impact educational outcomes?2. What are the distributional implications of

benefits of school subsidies, if any?

Preview of Results Controling for unobservable individual characteristics,

we find a 5 percentage point average increase in daily school attendance due to cooked school meals

Change in program design even with insignificant changes in cost structure improved average outcomes

No improvement in participation rates of girls

No improvement in participation rates of low castes Disadvantaged schools may be poor program

implementers

Literature

Programs that subsidize the cost of schooling are popular policy initiatives for increasing school participation in developing countries. Conditional cash transfers (Progresa in Mexico) Free textbooks and uniforms (Kenya, India) Scholarships (India) Free food grains (Bangladesh)

Evidence of positive effect of school transfer programs on enrolment (Schultz, 2004)

Difficult to measure the effect on daily school participation or attendance – less noisy measure of participation.

Transfers in these programs either did not systematically vary with daily attendance (viz. free uniforms and textbooks) or attendance was already high prior to program implementation (Progresa)

Literature Cost-benefit analysis of school transfer

programs do not suggest any one subsidy program as most effective

No research on impact of program design holding program costs constant

Literature on school meals

Ahmed (2004, Bangladesh); Vermeersch and Kremer (2005, Kenya)

In the Indian context, Afridi (2011) finds a 12 percentage point increase in attendance rates of girls in Grade 1 in rural Madhya Pradesh; insignificant effect on boys, higher grades and enrollments

Primary school studies do not account for unobservable heterogeneity at the individual level.

Program background: Design Nearly 80% of all public primary schools in Delhi are run by the Municipal

Corporation of Delhi (MCD), accounting for almost 85% of all public primary school enrollments in the city.

Prior to 2002-03, ready-to-eat snacks was served in MCD schools such as biscuits, roasted grams, wheat puffs and fruity bread (but mostly biscuits).

Provision of cooked meals started in municipal primary schools (Grades 1 to 5) of Delhi in July 2003.

Phased implementation of cooked meal scheme Phase 1: 410 of 1862 MCD schools got cooked meal between July and

August 2003 Phase 2: Remaining schools got cooked meals between September and

November 2003

In Phase 1, local NGOs/ service providers were selected on the basis of availability of infrastructure and distance from schools.

Schools close to the kitchens transitioned to cooked meals in Phase 1.

Program background: Costs

Providers re-imbursed at the rate of Rs. 2 per child by Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) under both cooked and ready to eat program.

The raw foodgrains (or foodgrain content of ready to eat items) and transport costs related to foodgrain procurement were fully subsidized by the federal government under both programs.

Schools were mandated to provide atleast 300 kcal per child per day (or 100 grams of raw wheat) in cooked meals and approximatey 265 kcal (or 75.6 grams of raw wheat) in the regime of packaged foods.

10 paise or less than 5% difference in per day per child costs. Annual costs per child are comparable if regularity of both programs is similar.

Data

Randomly sampled 26 primary schools in one of the 12 municipal zones (Central) of Delhi.

Between January 2007 and December 2008 two types of current and retrospective data was collected. School level data on facilities and implementation of the program (26

schools) Child level data of monthly attendance and family characteristics (22 of

26 schools )

Restrict sample to 2002-03 and 2003-04. Total of 3262 students

Table 1: School characteristics in April 2003School Characteristics Control Treatment Difference

(N=12) (N=10)(1) (2) (1)-(2)

Computer room 0.55 0.30 0.25(0.366) (0.153) (0.411)

Drinking water 0.91 1.00 -0.091(0.091) (0.000) (0.096)

Library 0.90 0.80 0.10(0.100) (0.133) (0.167)

Playground 1.00 1.00 0.00(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Boys’ toilet 0.10 0.20 -0.10(0.100) (0.133) (0.167)

Girls’ toilet 0.10 0.20 -0.10(0.100) (0.133) (0.167)

Number of permanent teachers

11.30 0.56 0.74

(1.972) (1.668) (2.614)Number of temporary teachers

0.10 1.89 -1.79

(0.100) (1.160) (1.102)Pupil-teacher ratio 20.28 22.25 -1.98

(4.141) (5.603) (6.872)Attendance rateGrade 1 0.63 0.50 -0.13

(0.050) (0.040) (-0.070)Grade 2 0.85 0.75 -0.10

(0.040) (0.030) (0.050)**Grade 3 0.81 0.78 -0.03

(0.020) (0.020) (0.030)Grade 4 0.83 0.81 -0.02

(0.030) (0.030) (0.040)Grade 5 0.77 0.80 0.03

(0.040) (0.030) (0.050)

Table 2: Individual characteristics of students enrolled in April 2003:

Standard errors in parentheses * significant at 5% ** significant at 1%

Characteristics

Control TreatmentDifferenceN Mean N Mean

(1) (2) (3) (4) (4) – (2)Female 593 0.47 647 0.66 0.19**  (0.021) (0.019) (0.028)

Grade 593 2.76 647 2.49 -0.27**  (0.039) (0.042) (0.058)

Religion and CasteMuslim 593 0.34 647 0.14 -0.20**  (0.019) (0.014) (0.023)

General 579 0.58 644 0.58 0.00

  (0.021) (0.019) (0.028)

SC/ST 579 0.32 644 0.26 -0.06**  (0.019) (0.017) (0.026)

OBC 579 0.10 644 0.16 0.06**  (0.012) (0.014) (0.019)

Father’s occupationSkilled worker 584 0.28 639 0.14 -0.14**  (0.019) (0.014) (0.023)

Unskilled worker 584 0.38 639 0.22 -0.16**  (0.020) (0.016) (0.026)

Private job or small shop owner 584 0.28 639 0.59 0.31**  (0.019) (0.019) (0.027)

Government job or professional 584 0.04 639 0.04 0.00

  (0.008) (0.008) (0.011)

Apr/02 Jul/02 Oct/02 Jan/030.700000000000001

0.750000000000001

0.800000000000001

0.850000000000001

0.900000000000001

0.950000000000001

Control Treat

Figure 1: Attendance rate in 2002-03 by treatment status:(school balanced panel, N=19)

Note: Only schools for which data for both 2002 and 2003 are available included.

Methodology Uses the staggered implementation of cooked meals.

Almost 50% of the sampled schools implemented MDM program before September 2003 and the other half, after September 2003.

Treatment group : 10 schools which implemented MDM before September 2003 (in July or August) .

Control group: 12 schools which implemented it after September 2003 (in October or November).

Phase Month in 2003

No. of schools

Proportion of Sampled schools

I July 9 40.90 I August 1 4.56 II October 9 40.90 II November 3 13.64

Number of sampled schools in Phase I and II

Estimation strategy School-fixed effects:

Pijt = α + β0 Tij + β1 t + β2 (Tij* t) + γ Xij + μj + εijt (1)

Pijt : Participation outcome for individual i in school j at time t Tij : 1 if school j transitioned to cooked meals before September 2003, 0 if

after September 2003 t : 1 if observation is recorded for September 2003, 0 if September 2002 Xij : vector of individual characteristics μj : unobservable, time-invariant school characteristics β2 : Coefficient of interest

Estimation strategyIndividual-fixed effects:

Pijt = α + β0 Tij + β1 t + β2 (Tij* t) + δi + εijt (2)

- δi : unobservable, time-invariant individual characteristics

Outcomes:monthly attendance rate: total number of classes attended by a student divided by the total number of classes that the student could have potentially attended. current enrollment

Estimation strategyAnalysis at the grade level: Pijt = α + β0 Tij + β1 t + β2 (Tij* t) + δi + εijt

(2)

Tij=0 for all schools in our sample in April, 2003 (since none were offering cooked school meals) Tij=1 for those schools which transitioned to cooked meals between July and September, 2003 and 0 otherwise.

Estimation strategy1. The variation in the implementation of

the cooked school meal program is independent of time trends in participation.

2. No systematic differences in the reliability of the school records of control and treatment group of schools.

Table 3: Effect of school meals on attendance rate, 2002-03 (Balanced School Panel)

 Variables Pooled OLS   

School-fixed effects   ALL BOYS GIRLS ALL BOYS GIRLS

Treat -0.061 -0.116 -0.043        (0.021)** (0.042)** (0.023)  Year=2003 -0.041 -0.083 0.026 -0.041 -0.085 0.033  (0.017)* (0.028)** (0.021) (0.017)** (0.029)** (0.019)*

Treat* Year 2003 0.055 0.077 -0.007 0.056 0.069 -0.011  (0.023)* (0.042) (0.026) (0.023)** (0.044) (0.024)Grade2 0.066 0.057 0.051 0.045 0.056 0.036  (0.021)** (0.039) (0.025)* (0.024)* (0.05) (0.023)Grade3 0.086 0.088 0.073 0.076 0.088 0.064  (0.022)** (0.036)* (0.026)** (0.024)** (0.047)* (0.025)**Grade4 0.079 0.065 0.07 0.059 0.06 0.056  (0.022)** (0.034) (0.026)** (0.025)** (0.046) (0.024)*Grade5 0.096 0.119 0.064 0.095 0.127 0.061  (0.023)** (0.042)** (0.026)* (0.026)** (0.052)** (0.025)**Female 0.020 -0.003    (0.013) (0.027)  

Constant 83.565 167.991 -51.198 83.204 170.313 -65.69  (35.007)* (55.091)** (41.291) (34.850)** (57.686)** (38.819)*Observations 120 52 68 120 52 68R-squared 0.39 0.59 0.38 0.33  0.40 0.37

Standard errors in parentheses. *significant at 5% **significant at 1%. Controls for socio-economic group and father’s education.

Table 4:Effect of school meals on attendance rate, 2002-03 (Balanced Individual Panel)

Standard errors in parentheses. *significant at 5% **significant at 1%. With controls for grade, social group and father’s Occupation in school fixed effects model.

Variables School-fixed effects Child-fixed effectsALL BOYS GIRLS ALL BOYS GIRLS

Year=2003 -0.028 -0.064 0.013 -0.028 -0.065 0.015(0.008)** (0.012)** (0.01) (0.007)** (0.012)** (0.009)

Treat* Year 2003 0.051 0.113 -0.004 0.050 0.110 -0.005(0.011)** (0.018)** (0.013) (0.010)** (0.018)** (0.012)

Female 0.04(0.018)*

Age 0.029 -0.024 0.061(0.021) (0.038) (0.024)**

Age-squared -0.002 0.001 -0.004(0.001)* (0.002) (0.001)**

Constant 56.812 128.157 -25.886 56.297 130.851 -28.181(15.681)** (23.432)** -20.994 (14.913)** (23.347)** (18.544)

Observations 2386 1032 1354 2480 1072 1408Number of students 1193 516 677 1240 536 704R-squared 0.11 0.12 0.13 0.57 0.54 0.63

Child fixed effectsCaste Religion

Variables GENERAL SC/ST OBC NON-MUSLIM MUSLIMYear=2003 -0.042 -0.001 -0.009 -0.017 -0.048

(0.010)** (0.014) (0.022) (0.009)* (0.012)**Treat*year2003 0.073 0.011 0.020 0.038 0.076

(0.013)** (0.021) (0.027) (0.012)** (0.022)**Constant 85.932 2.689 18.031 35.275 96.993

(19.439)** (28.513) (44.022) (18.648)* (24.124)**Observations 1422 710 314 1898 582

Table 5: Effect of school meals on attendance rate by social group , 2002-03 (Balanced Individual Panel)

Standard errors in parentheses. *significant at 5% **significant at 1%. Missing caste data for some students.

Table 6: Effect of school meals on attendance rate by social group , 2002-03

(Balanced Individual Panel, schools with atleast 10% of each group in 2002)

Variables

Child fixed effects

Non-Muslim Muslim General SC/ST/OBCYear=2003 -0.016 0.000 -0.034 -0.003

(0.009)* (0.011) (0.014)** (0.011)Treat*Year2003 0.034 0.024 0.061 0.012

(0.012)** (0.020) (0.018)** (0.016)Constant 32.147 1.295 69.52 6.257

(17.039)* (21.820) (28.571)** (21.802)Observations 1804 498 788 986

Standard errors in parentheses. *significant at 5% **significant at 1%.

School fixed effects Child fixed effects

Variables General SC/ST Muslim General SC/ST Muslim

Year=2003 -0.006 0.013 0.039 -0.006 0.016 0.039

(0.024) (0.019) (0.018)* (0.021) (0.017) (0.019)*

Treat*year=2003 0.004 -0.019 -0.073 0.003 -0.022 -0.070

(0.046) (0.031) (0.035)* (0.041) (0.028) (0.030)*

Constant 13.213 -24.304 -76.403 11.974 -31.252 -76.664

(47.014) (37.440) (36.729)* (41.420) (34.805) (38.389)*

Observations 180 374 126 194 382 128

Table 7: Effect of school meals on attendance rate by social group , 2002-03

(Balanced Panel, schools with atleast 50% of SC/ST/OBC students in 2002)

Standard errors in parentheses. *significant at 5% **significant at 1%.

Table 8: Effect of school meals on attendance rate by grade, Apr-Sep 2003 (Balanced Individual Panel):

Standard errors in parentheses * significant at 5% ** significant at 1%

 VariablesIndividual fixed effects

 Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5

September 0.259 0.04 0.069 0.023 0.132

  (0.023)** (0.015)** (0.013)** (0.015) (0.013)**Treat* September 0.121 0.075 0.039 0.095 -0.001  (0.031)** (0.021)** (0.018)* (0.021)** (0.022)Constant 0.524 0.806 0.814 0.822 0.79

  (0.011)** (0.007)** (0.007)** (0.007)** (0.007)**

N 390 555 645 565 562R-squared 0.40 0.25 0.22 0.10 0.26

Table 9: Effect of school meals on student survival, 2003

Cox-proportional hazard modelVARIABLES Grade 1 in 2002 Grade 2 in 2002 Grade 3 in 2002 Grade 4 in 2002Meal 0.98 1.39 1.97 1.03

(0.72) (0.55) (0.94) (0.69)Age 0.05 2.87 0.76 0.20

(0.11) (3.99) (0.16) (0.30)Age-squared 1.24 0.96 1.00 1.08

(0.20) (0.08) (0.02) (0.08)Girl 0.99 0.88 0.69 1.73

(0.63) (0.26) (0.27) (0.86)Muslim 0.73 0.71 2.20 2.15

(0.67) (0.31) (1.06) (1.37)SC/ST 0.66 0.41 1.49 1.57

(0.46) (0.18)** (0.76) (0.93)OBC 1.18 1.86 1.65 0.39

(0.88) (0.65)* (1.02) (0.44)No. of subjects 155 495 479 303No. of failures 15 50 34 21Likelihood Ratio 4.12 23.81* 14.87 8.41

 Characteristics in 2002 BOYS GIRLS   (Balanced Panel) N Mean N Mean Difference

(1) (2) (3) (4) (4)-(2)Religion and Caste+

Muslim 536 0.30 704 0.19 -0.11**  (0.458) (0.389) (0.024)General 527 0.64 696 0.53 -0.11**  (0.479) (0.499) (0.028)SC/ST 527 0.25 696 0.32 0.06**  (0.436) (0.466) (0.026)OBC 527 0.10 696 0.15 0.05**  (0.304) (0.355) (0.019)Father’s occupation+

Skilled worker 531 0.23 692 0.20 -0.03**  (0.419) (0.397) (0.023)Unskilled worker 531 0.32 692 0.28 -0.04**  (0.466) (0.449) (0.026)Private job or small shop owner 531 0.42 692 0.47 0.05**  (0.494) (0.499) (0.029)Government job or professional 531 0.03 692 0.05 0.02**  (0.166) (0.210) (0.011)Attendance RatesOverall 536 0.89 704 0.90 0.01

(0.151) (0.005) (0.008)Muslim 160 0.91 131 0.91 0.00  (0.011) (0.009) (0.015)General 339 0.89 372 0.90 0.01  (0.009) (0.006) (0.010)SC/ST 134 0.89 221 0.89 0.00  (0.013) (0.010) (0.016)OBC 54 0.90 103 0.90 0.00

(0.015) (0.014) (0.022)

 Characteristics in 2002 SC/ST/OBC General  

 (Balanced Panel) N Mean N Mean Difference (1) (2) (3) (4) (2)-(4)Girl 512 0.63 711 0.52 0.11

    (0.021)   (0.019) (0.029)***

Father’s occupation+

Skilled worker 506 0.17 700 0.23 -0.07

  (0.017) (0.016) (0.024)***

Unskilled worker 506 0.36 700 0.25 0.12

  (0.021) (0.016) (0.026)***Private job or small shop owner 506 0.42 700 0.47 -0.04

  (0.022) (0.019) (0.029)Government job or professional 506 0.04 700 0.04 0

  (0.009) (0.007) (0.011)

Attendance Rate 512 0.89 711 0.90 0

  (0.006) (0.005) (0.008)

 Characteristics in 2002 Non-muslim Muslim  

 (Balanced Panel) N Mean N Mean Difference 1 2 3 4 (2)-(4)

Female 949 0.60 291 0.45 0.15

  (0.016) (0.029) (0.032)***

Father’s occupation+

Skilled worker 939 0.17 284 0.35 -0.18

  (0.012) (0.028) (0.027)***

Unskilled worker 939 0.29 284 0.32 -0.04

  (0.015) (0.028) (0.031)Private job or small shop

owner 939 0.49 284 0.31 0.18

  (0.016) (0.027) (0.033)***Government job or

professional 939 0.04 284 0.02 0.02

  (0.007) (0.009) (0.013)***

Attendance Rate 949 0.89 291 0.91 -0.02

  (0.005) (0.007) (0.009)**

Conclusions The evidence suggests a rise in average quantity of inputs

in the household production function for education: On-site school meals can be effective in improving the daily

participation rates

Change in program design itself can lead to significant improvement in average outcomes even in the absence of any significant change in cost Taste and variety of meals in program changed

School subsidy programs may not have significant impact in poorly administered schools or low quality schools. Are impacts conditional on school quality?