Impact of Mid Day Meal on Enrollment, Attendance and Retention of Primary School Children

Four important areas are identified for achieving the goal of Education for all. These are Access to Education, Enrolment of children, and Retention of the enrolled children as well as in academic achievement. The Mid Day Meal scheme is an effort to achieve and facilitate these objectives. The objective of present study is to to evaluate the impact of mid day meal on enrollment, attendance and retention of primary school children in Uttar Pradesh. MDM and non MDM schools are selected by cluster random sampling method. Result revealed that MDM scheme prove a major mean in improving enrollment and attendance comparatively. Some efforts should be needed to increase retention of students by increasing variety and quality of Mid Day Meal and by incorporating interesting method of teaching.