By Innocent Akampurira, AFEP Fellow
A hungry child cannot learn well. Even temporary or intermittent hunger, such as when a child arrives at school without having breakfast, can reduce their concentration and make complex tasks more difficult. This is true regardless of the child’s overall nutritional status.
Many countries have school feeding programmes, but these are not necessarily enough to improve attendance or learning. Evidence from Uganda suggests that what matters most is whether meals consistently reach most children in the school.
Hunger, learning and uneven access in Uganda
Uganda’s challenge is not simply whether schools report a feeding programme, but whether meals reach learners consistently. The study found that about 71% of schools report some form of feeding arrangement, yet an estimated 66% of learners have no access to school meals. This contrast shows that programmes can exist on paper while reaching too few children to produce broad learning gains (Policy Brief No. 314).
At the same time, seven in ten children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand a simple text by age 10. This learning gap can contribute to grade repetition, school dropout and more limited opportunities later in life (The State of Global Learning Poverty: 2022 Update).
Hunger is one part of this wider challenge.
Uganda’s parent-led approach
Much of the existing research on school feeding examines government-financed programmes with broad and consistent coverage. Uganda presents a different picture.
Many Ugandan schools formally report having a feeding programme, with the programmes often led by parents. Households contribute food or money, usually through informal arrangements. Because families have differing levels of resources and circumstances, participation can vary greatly within the same school.
This raises an important question: does the reported existence of a school feeding programme improve outcomes, or do benefits emerge only when most children receive meals?
What the study examined
The study used data from Uwezo Uganda’s 2024 National Learning Assessment Survey and applied partial identification methods. This statistical approach estimates a credible range of possible effects using clearly stated assumptions.
The analysis focused on whether parent-led school feeding programmes affected pupils’ attendance, English literacy and numeracy. It also examined whether the level of participation within a school changed the results.
Coverage makes the difference
The findings point to a clear distinction between programmes that exist in name and programmes that consistently reach children.
Measurable benefits appeared only when participation was high and consistent across the school. In this study, ‘high coverage’ means that at least 75% of learners participated in the feeding programme. These high-coverage parent-led programmes generated meaningful improvements in both attendance and learning.
The estimated gains were substantial. High-coverage programmes improved attendance by approximately 8.2 to 11.1 percentage points. English literacy increased by up to 12.8 percentage points, while numeracy improved by up to 18.5 percentage points.
For a country facing large foundational literacy and numeracy gaps, improvements of this scale could meaningfully change children’s educational trajectories.
Why uneven coverage may weaken the whole classroom
The importance of coverage is not only about the children who receive meals. Uneven access may affect the learning environment for everyone.
In a classroom where only some pupils have eaten, hungry children may struggle to concentrate or participate fully. Some may miss lessons or leave school in search of food. Their classmates may also be distracted by the visible hunger of their peers. As a result, the potential benefits of a feeding programme can be diluted when participation is low.
When most children are fed, the classroom may become more stable and attentive. More pupils can remain in school, concentrate on lessons and participate in learning. This may help explain why high-coverage programmes produce stronger results than programmes that reach only a small share of learners.
Count children reached, not programmes reported
The Uganda analysis draws attention to parent-led school feeding, a model that receives relatively little attention in research despite being common across sub-Saharan Africa.
Uganda’s National School Feeding Policy was still being drafted in June 2026 and had not yet been submitted to Cabinet for approval. The Ministry of Education and Sports also indicated that rollout was unlikely during the 2026/27 financial year (Daily Monitor, 18 June 2026). When the policy is introduced, its design and implementation will determine whether it delivers meaningful results.
Policymakers should therefore avoid measuring progress only by counting the number of schools that report having feeding programmes. That measure says little about whether children are receiving meals.
Instead, monitoring systems should track the proportion of learners who have consistent access to food. Expansion strategies should prioritise high coverage within each participating school, alongside reliable financing and implementation arrangements.
