School-feeding programme deemed a success

The first phase of a pilot school-feeding project for academic year 2001-02 in the Republic of Congo (ROC) has been deemed a success by a mission charged with its evaluation. The programme, which began in December 2001, is a joint effort by the Ministry of Secondary Education, the UN World Food Programme (WFP), and the UN Children's Fund. The project succeeded in keeping 7,686 students in 47 schools regularly attending classes by providing them with food. "The number of students involved would have been higher if the programme - which was aimed at assisting 15,000 students - had not been curtailed in schools located in Kinkala, Boko, Louingui and Goma Tse-Tse because of the insecurity that has prevailed in that region since March 2002," Guy Adoua, the WFP programme assistant in charge of the school feeding programme, told IRIN. Moreover, very few cases of children dropping out of school were recorded over the course of the year. Whereas an average of 20 percent to 30 percent of students in the affected regions would normally drop out of school, the level decreased to 9 percent this past year. Furthermore, a number of children who had dropped out of school in previous years returned to attend classes regularly. The evaluation mission found that dropout rates were higher in schools that did not receive regular aid. In the capital, Brazzaville, where two-thirds of beneficiary nursery schools are located, higher than average dropout rates were attributed to parents' inability to pay school fees, and sociopolitical instability. The mission noted that beneficiary communities of the programme were very supportive of the initiative, with women in many school districts lending their support to food preparation. "In some schools, the foodstuffs of WFP were augmented by local food products donated by parents in support of the programme," Adoua said. The mission recommended that the experimental phase of the programme be extended through the 2002-03 academic year with the addition of schools located in the regions of Pool, Plateaux, and Cuvette.