The Impact of School-Based Feeding Program in the District of Cabarroguis

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Malnutrition is prevalent in developing countries and among other countries. Records showed that the Philippines is one among the countries with high rate of malnutrition which then leads to poor academic performance. The Department of Education issued Department of Education Order No. 51, s. 2016, School-Based Feeding Program, an intervention to improve the Nutritional Status of schoolchildren in the country.

METHODS

Mean, standard deviation, a repeated measure of analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the Pearson Product Moment Correlation were used by the researchers. The mean and standard deviation were used to describe the nutritional status for the three (3) consecutive school years and to answer the research question on the impact of SBFP on drop-out rate, promotion rate, and nutritional status. Focus Group Discussion was used to know the issues, concerns, problems encountered and the best practices. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to test the difference between means of significance and to determine the significant difference in the nutritional status of the target study.

RESULTS

The impact of the School-Based Feeding Program to the five (5) recipient schools for three consecutive school years school SY 2014-2017 in the District of Cabarroguis was presented by the researchers through the use of necessary data of drop-out rate, promotion rate, Nutritional Status before and after implementation and survey forms answered by the school heads, SBFP Coordinators and teachers. Results from the computed t-value (19.9960) and the tabular t-value (0.05) revealed that there was a significant difference in the nutritional status of the beneficiaries of the five School-Based Feeding Program recipient schools. Thus, the number of wasted and severely wasted pupils were reduced, and all of them were promoted to next grade level and maintained zero drop-out rate. The result of their nutritional status were also improved within the three-year implementation.

DISCUSSIONS

Based from the results, The School-Based-Feeding Program in all schools of the district of Cabarroguis should be intensified. There must be enhancement on the implementation and close monitoring of the school-based feeding program. The nearly wasted pupils must be also included as recipients of the SBFP and SBFP plan for the obese and nearly obese and overweight children. Further similar studies must be conducted to validate the impact of school-based feeding program with a larger sample size to other schools in the district and in the division.