Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s flagship breakfast scheme has delivered substantial health and academic benefits across the state’s government schools, the State Planning Commission (SPC) has found.
The special report, titled ‘Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme: Impact on Children in Primary Classes in Government Schools’, said that the breakfast scheme led to a 63.2 percent decline in hospital admissions among primary class children in government schools and a 70.6 percent reduction in serious illnesses between December 2023 and December 2024.
According to the report, a copy of which is available with ThePrint, hospital visits among students of government primary schools dropped by 68.4 percent in rural areas and 29.4 percent in urban areas during this period, highlighting the programme’s impact on regions with nutritional challenges.
Apart from health parameters, the report submitted by the Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission to Stalin on 13 March also found that the scheme had helped increase student engagement in class.
The survey of nearly 5,300 students from urban and rural schools found notable gains in attentiveness and comprehension. The percentage of students who could pay attention without prompting increased significantly from 85.8 percent to 93.7 percent while the ability to follow teachers’ instructions increased from 91.3 percent to 95.5 percent.
At the same time, more students are completing written work assignments, with rates climbing from 89.6 percent to 95.4 percent. Memory retention and learning capacity are also on the rise, with lesson recall improving from 71.4 percent to 77 percent and the ability to learn new material jumping from 88.1 percent to 92.5 percent.
Additionally, significant improvements were observed in the reading skills of students from 88.9 percent to 94.2 percent, speaking skills from 92.9 percent to 95.9 percent, and handwriting skills from 90.2 percent to 93.4 percent.
The breakfast scheme was launched in September 2022 across 1,545 government primary schools, covering 1.14 lakh students. It was expanded to all government primary schools in August 2023, reaching 31,008 schools in both rural and urban areas and catering to 17 lakh students from Class I to Class V, with an annual budget of about Rs 500 crore.
The breakfast menu, which varies each day, is aimed at providing balanced nutrition. It includes upma, khichdi, pongal and semiya Kesari. Each meal is designed to provide 293 calories, 9.85 grams of protein, 5.91 grams of fat, 20.41 grams of iron, and 1.64 grams of calcium. Millets are also added to the menu twice a week to enhance nutritional value.
In his second year as chief minister, Stalin even went to a school to personally supervise the breakfast scheme and serve food to students in 2022. In 2024, he also fed students by hand when he expanded the scheme to government-aided schools.
Executive vice chairman of State Planning Commission and economist J. Jeyaranjan told ThePrint the scheme had had the most impact on rural students.
“Rural students were the ones who benefitted most since most of their parents go to work in the early morning. The impact will be more in the coming days,” Jeyaranjan said.
“While introducing the scheme, the only agenda was to make sure that children study in their classroom without hunger. But, the impact it has created is huge. So, we have planned to enhance the programme and, we have recommended to the chief minister to further diversify the meal, and make it more nutritious,” he added.
The SPC has also recommended targeted interventions to address nutritional deficiencies and ensure equitable access, thereby boosting the programme’s overall effectiveness.
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Background of the survey
Of the 30,992 primary schools in the state, the SPC chose 100 schools with representations from all 38 districts. After obtaining consent from the parents, data was collected from 3,944 students from 82 rural schools and 1,330 students from 18 urban schools.
The survey was carried out by the community medicine department of all government medical colleges led by the community medicine department of the Madras Medical College.
While the first round was conducted in December 2023, three follow-up rounds were held in March 2024, June 2024 and, September 2024 before the final one in December 2024.
ThePrint also spoke to a cross-section of teachers in primary schools who said the scheme proved to be effective beyond their expectations. P. Abraham, a government primary school teacher with over 20 years of experience in Coimbatore’s urban area, said children’s attention during morning classes had improved since the programme’s implementation.
“Before the scheme was implemented, at least four to five people would faint during the morning assembly but, now, no such incidents are reported and students’ attention is also high,” he said. Teachers say the scheme proved effective beyond their expectations.
“In 2022, we were talking among ourselves about who would send their children to school without having breakfast in the 21st century. However, we were proved wrong once the scheme was implemented,” said Aruna, adding that 98 percent of the children in her school avail themselves of the scheme.
Improved nutrition levels
The numbers are telling.
According to the report, attendance rates increased slightly from 89 percent to 90 percent between December 2023 and December 2024. Similarly, punctuality among students also rose slightly from 97.2 percent to 98.4 percent across all socio-demographic groups.
The study also highlighted improvements in the nutritional levels of students. Based on their nutritional status, it classified them as normal, thin and severely thin, overweight and obese. Of the total number of students classified as ‘severely thin’ in December 2023, about 25.8 percent transitioned to ‘thin’ and about 32.1 percent to ‘normal’.
Similarly, of those classified as ‘thin’ in December 2023, 46.7 percent reached the ‘normal’ category while 42.6 percent moved from ‘overweight’ in December 2023 to ‘normal’.
However, progress among students in the ‘obese’ category was slow, with 17 percent shifting to ‘overweight’ and 20.8 percent to ‘normal’.
Jeyaranjan told ThePrint that many factors affect the health of students. “Schools provide morning breakfast and mid-day meals, but we never know how they are back in their home. Say, for instance, if a student suffers from diarrhea due to water contamination in their locality, it would take the children’s health back several months,” Jeyaranjan said.
The improvement in nutrition levels of the students is reflected in health parameters.
Students suffering from serious illnesses reduced by about 80.3 percent in urban schools and about 68.9 percent in rural schools.
While the rate of hospitalisation of boys and girls decreased by about 57.1 percent and 64.7 percent respectively, boys and girls suffering from serious illnesses reduced by 72.9 percent and 67.5 percent respectively.
“The slightly better health outcomes in girls may be attributed to their higher immunity due to greater body fat percentage, which supports immune function,” the report read.
The SPC has recommended that Chief Minister Stalin extend the scheme to higher classes.
“We take care of them only till Class V, but after that their nutritious level tends to decrease if they again fall back to their old routine. So, we have asked to expand it to middle and high school students to sustain the same nutritional level and improve their academic performance,” Jeyaranjan said.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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