Contribution of school feeding programme on participation of learners in basic education in Rusizi district-Rwanda

Abstract

The Government of Rwanda introduced major reforms of School Feeding Programme (SFP) in the education sector to improve the participation of 9Years Basic Education students. This study had the objectives of finding out the extent to which the SFP affect the enrolment of learners; to determine the extent to which the SFP contribute to learner’s school attendance and to examine the extent to which SFP affect the school retention of learner’s in basic education in Rusizi District-Rwanda. It was conducted in this area because for many years there had been massive dropout rate of learners due to poverty as those who fails Primary Leaving Exam (PLE) had to go in private schools which was so expensive to many parents. Hence many learners were forced to go and look for menial job in order to support their parents. This study particularly focuses on the contribution of the SFP on the participation of learners in education as well as the community involvement in the SFP influences learner’s participation rate in basic education schools. The targeted population consisted of 45 head teachers, 3000 parents, 300 teachers and 32800 Learners. The researcher to get sample in this study used purposive sampling.To collect data in this study the researchers used the tools namely Questionnaires, interview and observation.Those collected data were quantitative and qualitative in nature and they were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and the results were presented mainly in tables and figures. This study has found that SFP increase the enrolment rate of leaners; it increase also the attendance of learners and it increases retention of learners in basic Education in Rusizi-Rwanda, thus this study recommend the parents to be involved in the SFP as it help the learners to learn in the smooth environment which give the school staffs to take fully care of the learners as they stay at school at lunch time ;reduce the drop-out rate as well as to improve their wealth.