Socio-Economic Determinants of Financing of School Feeding Practices among Primary and Secondary School Children in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

The significance of school feeding to school children cannot be over-emphasized. Different school feeding programs provide different benefits that could support students’ retention in schools, increase enrolment and attendance, increase academic performance and enhanced participatory learning. The study assessed socioeconomic determinants of school feeding financing in primary and secondary schools. Specifically, the study examined association between socioeconomic status and food financing status in primary and secondary schools. The study adopted a cross-sectional research design whereby a sample of 519 households was selected. Quantitative data were analysed with the aid of IBMStatistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) whereby descriptive statistics were computed to obtain frequencies and percentage distributions of the responses. A forward stepwise binary logistic regression model was used to assess relationship between socio-economic characteristics and provision of sufficient payment for school meals. The results of forward stepwise binary logistic regression indicated that number of girls in school in the family, lowest and second wealth quantile and fewer school boys were significantly related with provision of sufficient payment for school meals in primary schools at the p<0.05 significance level, while employment status, sex, income, wealth quantile and number of children in and out of school were significantly related with provision of sufficient payment for school meals in secondary schools at the p<0.05 significance level. The study concludes that socioeconomic factors influence ability of parents to afford payments for school meals in both primary and secondary schools. Based on this, it is recommended that development practitioners in the education sector should provide enabling environment including facilitation of income generating activities among parents with children in primary and secondary schools in order to improve their income status which will eventually enable them to have the ability to finance school feeding. The stakeholders in the education sector should create awareness to parents of school children on the importance of financing school feeding programs for their children. Local Government Authorities and other stakeholders should develop mechanisms that will ensure effective financing of the school feeding programme in primary and secondary schools.