Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to investigate if the school feeding program has significant impact on
students’ school performance specifically on students’ achievement Test score and students’
class attendance rates among primary school children in Debre Libanos Woreda. A mixed
method research design specifically sequential explanatory approaches was employed and a
combination of qualitative and quantitative data collected. The data sources for the research
were both primary and secondary. The primary data were collected from school administration
of 423 students (195 from treatment and 228 from Controlled groups) using structured
questionnaire. Content analyses, Key Informant Interviews and Observation were the methods
employed to collect both primary and secondary data. The analysis employed both descriptive
and inferential statistics. The independent sample t-test statistics revealed that there was a
statistically significant difference between the treatment and control group on attendance rate
(t= p < 0.01) but the two groups of students were not different in their achievement test score
(t=p>0.10) using independent sample t-test. Thus, the possible explanation is that SFP is a
fundamental instrument to increase academic performance specifically on students’ school
attendance rate.