Fewer children receiving school meals this year, national income dynamics study finds

LESS than half of children (43%) received free school meals in February and March this year, well below pre-pandemic levels (65%), and November/December 2020 levels (49%).

This is according to Wave 4 results of the National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (Nids-Cram), released yesterday.

The Nids-Cram Wave 4 data was collected between February 2 and March 10, with 5 629 successful interviews conducted.

Respondents with children were asked if their child had received a school meal in the past seven days.

“Restricting this to those dates where schools were open and children could receive meals shows that only 43% of respondents said yes.

“The leading explanation for low school meal receipt is rotational timetables where only half of children attend on any one day in most no-fee schools,” the study found.

The majority of parents and caregivers (58%) agreed that children should be able to attend school every day, rather than using rotational timetables.

There were strong racial differences, with the highest rate of agreement among white respondents (85%) and coloured respondents (69%), and the lowest rate of agreement among black Africans (56%).

The study also found that last year, primary school children in no-fee schools learnt 50-75% less than they normally learn.

Two large, independent studies show that, depending on the subject, learning losses in no-fee schools last year ranged from 50-75% of a year of learning when compared with children in 2019.

As part of the Early Grade Reading Study (EGRS) II, children in a sample of 130 no-fee schools in Mpumalanga were assessed on reading outcomes in both their Home Language (HL) and English as First Additional Language (EFAL) in 2017, 2018, 2019 and last year.

This allowed for comparisons of annual learning gains in reading. Grade 4s last year experienced overall learning losses of 79% in HL and 52% in EFAL.

“Over the past decade there have been some improvements in both reading and mathematics outcomes.

“However, new data indicates that some of these gains are being eroded due to the flattening of learning trajectories,” the authors found.

The percentage of respondents indicating they were “very worried” about their children returning to school increased between November/December last year (52%) and February/March this year (57%).

The Nids-Cram study is funded by the Allan & Gill Gray Philanthropy, the FEM Education Foundation and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

The views of the authors are not necessarily the views of the funders.