Austerity is impeding children’s education: A qualitative study of the associations of food insecurity and school engagement in Ghana

The latest round of fiscal austerity in Ghana has meant that the feeding rate paid to the service providers of Ghana’s school feeding programme is both frozen and unrealistically low. Accordingly, service providers adopt discretionary coping strategies. This qualitative case study, therefore, explores the impacts of austerity on children’s school engagement. Relying on semi-structured interviews with school children in two public primary schools, as well as two focus group discussions with the teachers in both schools, the study shows how the discretionary coping strategies adopted by the service providers impact school children’s food security, which might lead to disinterest in classroom activities and increases in absenteeism and truancy.