SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAMMES AND PUPILS' ACADEMIC PERFORMANCES:A CASE STUDY OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN CALABAR MUNICIPALITY OF CROSS RIVER STATE, NIGERIA

ABSTRACT The study was carried out to examine the effect of school feeding programme on academic performance of public primary schools in Calabar Municipality of Cross River State. To achieve the purpose of this study,three research hypotheses were formulated to direct the study.Available related literature to the variables, under study was reviewed accordingly. Survey research design was adopted for this study and a sample of two hundred respondents was used for the study. The selection was done through the convenience sampling techniques which were employed for transparency. Questionnaires served as the instrument used for data collection. The questionnaire was administered to the sampled pupils and scored accordingly. To test the hypothesis and to ascertain whether to reject or retain them, Pearson product moment correlation analysis was adopted and all the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance with 198 degrees of freedom. The result of the analysis revealed that all major independent variables (free meals, adequate food and nutritious food) significantly influence the dependent variables (academic performance). The study concluded that there is asignificant influence of school feeding programmes on primary school pupils'academic performance in Calabar Municipality of Cross River State.based on the findings it was recommended among others that accessibility and utilization of school based feeding programs should be encouraged in our primary school system to promote pupils academic performance in Calabar Municipality