47. Retention rate, by grade | |||||||||
VERSION | V5.0 - 2026.03 — Existing | ||||||||
INDICATOR CODE | 47 | ||||||||
TECHNICAL OWNER | PRG-S SBP | ||||||||
INDICATOR TYPE | Country Level Outcome Indicator | ||||||||
INDICATOR CLASSIFICATION | Complementary | ||||||||
INDICATOR SCOPE | Programme specific | ||||||||
APPLICABILITY | The selection of this indicator is recommended against the following sub-activities in CSPs logframes. Selection of the below sub-activities will NOT trigger the mandatory selection of this indicator: | ||||||||
UNIT OF MEASUREMENT & ANALYSIS | Percentage of students | ||||||||
DEFINITION | The retention rate is defined as the share of students (total as well as disaggregated by sex) enrolled at the beginning of the school year who completed the school year (by either passing to the next grade, repeating the present grade, or graduating from school). | ||||||||
RATIONALE | For girls and boys to have the opportunity to achieve their full potential, they need to have improved learning outcomes and improved access to education. To achieve this, children should at least be able to enroll in school, attend regularly, complete the school year, and re-enroll for the following year. Retention rate provides visibility over the completion and re-enrolling part of the cycle, therefore whether children stayed in school. Completing the school year and re-enrolling in following years or graduating is especially important for pre- adolescent/adolescent years when students are at risk of dropping out because of the opportunity cost to the families or in contexts where the risk of early marriage among young girls is identified. School meals help to incentivize families to send and keep children in school, so retention rate can be a measure of the extent to which a school feeding programme has contributed to keeping girls and boys in school. In addition, it can be a key indicator for analyzing and projecting pupil flows from grade to grade within the educational continuum. | ||||||||
DATA COLLECTION TOOL | Data sources for this information are school registers, school surveys or census for data on enrolment and repeaters by grade. WFP would normally obtain this information from either:
COs will have to assess if the national EMIS provides adequate information for WFP assisted schools. Otherwise, a specific survey must be used with the agreement of the government agencies involved, other UN partners or NGOs. In instances where the government or schools are not collecting this data, country offices are encouraged to work jointly with the schools and partners to collect this information. Capacity building to government, cooperating partners, schools and local counterparts is encouraged to help build capacities to monitor and track progress of school feeding activities. Quality checks on education data is necessary during process monitoring and on-site monitoring. It is encouraged that during school visits and distributions, the number of students are cross-checked with available datasets to ensure alignment with received data. This data is available at schools and WFP must compile this information on annual basis at the end of each school year. | ||||||||
SAMPLING REQUIREMENTS | No sampling required. Data should be collected at all schools assisted by WFP. | ||||||||
INDICATOR CALCULATION FOR REPORTING | Retention rate in grade i (%) = ((Yi+1 + Zi)/Xi) x 100 Where: Xi: Number of students enrolled in grade i in school year t Yi+1: Number of students who passed from grade i to grade i + 1 in school year t+1 OR Number of students who graduated if grade i is the last grade before the next school level (e.g., last grade of primary school) Z i: Number of students repeating grade i in year t+1 This indicator should be collected by grade, when possible, to identify trends and improve programme design. For example, to identify if children are dropping out at higher rates at a specific grade. The CO will report only the overall retention rate in COMET but will keep track of the different rates by grade for programmatic purposes. Overall Retention Rate (%) = ((Y + Z + W)/X) x 100 Where: X: Total number of students enrolled in all grades in school year t Y: Total number of students who passed to the following grade in school year t + 1 W: Total number of students who graduated from last grade in school year t Z: Total number of students who repeated their grade in school year t + 1 If child-by-child data is not available – i.e., it is not possible to know the exact number of children who passed to the following grade or graduated, the below calculation can be done instead to provide an estimated retention rate. This methodology has additional limitations, so it should only be used in cases where appropriate data cannot be accessed. Retention rate in grade i = (Yi+1/X i) x 100 Where: Xi = Total number of students enrolled in grade i in school year t Y i+1 = Number of students enrolled in grade i +1 in school year t + 1 | ||||||||
DATA ENTRY AND DISAGGREGATION IN CORPORATE SYSTEMS | The following elements are mandatory in the combination entered in COMET for this indicator:
The retention rate has to be entered on COMET based on the following disaggregation: sex, overall value (as per below table)
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BASELINE | For new programmes, the value could be calculated based on data from prior years if available. If not available, the baseline will be based on first year’s reported value. For continuing programmes, the baseline is the value reported in the previous year. | ||||||||
TARGET SETTING | Annual targets: Country-specific End of CSP target: This should be set as per the country specific context. Ideally, programmes should aim to reach a retention rate of 100%, which may be unrealistic for the duration of the CSP, which is usually 4 or 5 years. As such, country offices may assess trends from previous years and/or main drivers of school dropout in the country to set yearly and CSP targets for retention rate. The end-CSP target is advised to be greater than the yearly targets. | ||||||||
FREQUENCY OF DATA COLLECTION | Annually, at the beginning of the school year. | ||||||||
INTERPRETATION | A 100 percent overall retention rate indicates that all children stayed in school in a given year – therefore, no child dropped out of school. A 100 percent retention rate for a specific grade, means that all children that were on that grade stayed in school and did not drop out. WFP aims to increase retention rate over the years, especially in contexts in which children face barriers to education. In countries or cases where retention rates are higher, WFP’s objective is to maintain retention rates at adequate levels – i.e., 100% or close to 100%. A yearly increase in retention rate values indicates improved access to education, and therefore it may signal that School Feeding Programmes are contributing to keeping children in school. It is recommended that retention rates at national level are compared with retention rates in WFP-supported schools, to compare yearly trends across the country. For continuing programmes, retention rate improvements could plateau as the programme has already incentivized children and their families to attend school and stay in school. A high level of retention that becomes stagnant over time is a sign of the continuous functioning of the programme. It is thus encouraged that retention is regularly monitored on an annual basis, even if no changes are anticipated. Shocks, stressors, conflicts, and emergencies could cause sudden changes to retention rates. By comparing rates across grades and sex, it is possible to assess whether the programme is achieving its intended results. For example, if the country office implements complementary activities that target girls, such as scholarships or food vouchers, and there is a high increase in retention rate for girls, then the programme is contributing to keeping girls in schools. Data can also identify areas which require greater programmatic emphasis. For example, if retention rate among girls continues to be lower than retention rate among boys, the country office may consider distributing additional take-home rations to a specific age group such as preadolescents or adolescents. Retention rates can also inform situation analyses and the state of schoolchildren (both at WFP-supported schools and nationally if data is available). Lower retention rates among boys in a certain grade could indicate the economic opportunity boys in this age group offers to the family and hence may suggest the need for household transfers in the form of take-home rations to make up for the opportunity cost of sending kids to schools. Low retention rates among girls especially in pre-adolescent/adolescent year could highlight prevalence of early marriage in this context and suggest relevant programming actions such as provision of incentives. Rates for WFP assisted schools or areas should be compared with rates in non-assisted schools if the information is available. recommendations on how best to evaluate and apply findings. | ||||||||
REPORTING EXAMPLE(S) | Example 1 (Chad): The school enrolment rate among IDPs increased from 22percent in 2020 to 29 percent in 2021, with an attendance rate of 88 percent in 2021.Despite these positive outcomes, there was a significant decrease of 20 percentage points in retention rates compared to 2020. This may be due to the reduced distribution, in cycles of food, from every two months to three months. Example 2 (Sudan, 2021): The retention rate was also slightly below the target, with 94 percent overall retention, against a target of 96 percent. These results can be explained by interrupted services during the year due to insecurity and flooding as well as a multitude of social, economic, cultural, and institutional barriers that remain in Sudan, putting students at risk of dropping out of school. Example 3 (Mozambique, 2021): WFP has worked to ensure continuous expansion of the School Feeding Programmes with an increase from 100,000 school children served in 2018 to 343,545 (49 percent female) in 2021 as well as an improvement in the average number of feeding days from 15 days per month to 23 days. This positive trend is also reflected in the impact of the programme on enrolment rate with an increase of 27 percent compared to 2020 and on retention rate which is 3 percent higher than the planned target (95 percent). | ||||||||
INDICATORS COLLECTED & ANALYSED AT THE SAME TIME | |||||||||
COMPLEMENTARY QUALITATIVE RESEARCH | This indicator can be complemented by many types of qualitative research to provide more insights into programme implementation and results achieved. Below are examples of topics that can be explored but other avenues are also possible based on CO interest and implementation: Reasons behind increase or decrease in retention rate of children in school–differences between different genders and grades.
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DECISIONS DATA CAN INFORM | This indicator can support many CO level decisions, below are some suggestions:
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VISUALIZATION |
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LIMITATIONS | While staying in school is crucial for sustained access to education, retention rate alone does not provide the complete picture of education and learning opportunities for children. Other elements of education are equally important, including school infrastructure, quality of learning, regular attendance, student-to-teacher ratio, etc. As such, it is important to focus the analysis and interpretation on what this indicator is measuring specifically. Narrative can and should be complemented, when possible, with other data points, case studies or learning exercises that study other aspects relevant to learning and education. On the other hand, school registers may not be available or reliable. Like other pupilflow rates (e.g., repetition rates), the retention rate is derived by analyzing data on enrolment and repeaters by grade for two consecutive years. One should, therefore, ensure that such data are consistent in terms of coverage over time and across grades. These flow-rates can be biased by: overreporting enrolment/repeaters; incorrect distinction between new entrants and repeaters; pupil transfers between schools (at sub-national level). In contexts where education related outcomes are high prior to WFP interventions, this indicator is not sensitive enough to measure progress achieved through school feeding programmes. It is advised in such contexts to use other health, nutrition, learning indicators to measure progress. | ||||||||
FURTHER INFORMATION | Contact Global HQ SBP team. | ||||||||
47. Retention rate, by grade
- Updated on Jun 4, 2026
- Published on Apr 27, 2026
- 9 minute(s) read
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