Abstract |
Food for Education (FFE) programs, which consist of meals served in school and in some cases take-home rations and deworming programs conditional on school attendance, are considered a powerful tool to improve educational outcomes, particularly in areas where school participation is initially low. Compared to other programs, such as conditional cash transfers and scholarships, school meals may provide a stronger incentive to attend school because children must be in school in order to receive the rations, and have the potential to improve nutritional and general health status as well. In this paper, we find that the Cambodia FFE, that was implemented in six Cambodian regions between 1999 and 2003, increased enrollment, school attendance and completed education. We also ask who benefited the most, and how cost-effective such a program is compared to other types of interventions |