21. Annual Change in Enrolment | |||||||||
VERSION | V5.0 - 2026.03 — Existing | ||||||||
INDICATOR CODE | 21 | ||||||||
TECHNICAL OWNER | 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 | ||||||||
DEFINITION | Annual change in enrolment is defined as the percentage change (increase or decrease) in number of children enrolled in WFP-assisted schools at the beginning of the school year, compared to the previous year. This indicator can be used to capture change in enrolment over time and provides an estimate of the effectiveness of school feeding in attracting children to school. Globally, enrolment rate is reported and calculated as Gross Enrolment Rate(GER) and/or Net Enrolment Rate (NER) which requires population census orestimates for school-age population. WFP programmes are not required to report on NER or GER due to difficulty to attain consistent population census data. However, if NER or GER are available, it is recommended to analyse trends at national level and compare with WFP-supported schools. | ||||||||
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 reenroll for the following year. Enrolment is the first step to guarantee sustained access to education, and school feeding programs can have a positive impact on school enrolment by providing incentives for families to enroll their children in school. The indicator captures change in enrolment over time, and therefore, measuring change in enrolment rates over time in WFP-assisted schools may indicate that the School Feeding Programme is effective in attracting children to school. At the beginning of each school year (cycle), government, school administrators, WFP or partners collect data on students registered in WFP-assisted schools. This data should be disaggregated by sex, district, type of school and the length of time schools have received assistance. While increase in enrolment is positive in general with the assumption that out of school children are drawn into schools because of school feeding, tracking the indicator in WFP assisted school and non-assisted schools could also signal undesirable outcomes such as students transferring from non-assisted schools to assisted schools; as this may stretch the resources of assisted schools. | ||||||||
DATA COLLECTION TOOL | Data sources for this information are school registers, school surveys or census for data on enrolment per year. 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 involved government agencies, 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, number of students are cross-checked with available datasets to ensure alignment with received data. Data can be collected through different methods. SBP is piloting School Connect which is a digital data collection tool that could be used to collect enrolment data. For more information or specific support on data collection tools, consult SBP MERL team. | ||||||||
SAMPLING REQUIREMENTS | No sampling required. Data should be collected at all schools assisted by WFP. | ||||||||
INDICATOR CALCULATION FOR REPORTING | Annual change in enrolment in year i (%):
Where: xi= total number of students enrolled in WFP-assisted schools in year i y-i= total number of students enrolled in WFP-assisted schools in the previous year Important: Note that having a coherent and consistent sample of schools for yearly analysis is necessary to generate meaningful results. As such, only schools with a proper baseline should be included in the sample for analysis. If WFP started assisting additional schools in year 2 of the CSP, then those additional schools must be included in the analysis from year 3 onwards, after establishing a baseline in year 2. This means that any students enrolled in schools that had not been assisted in the previous year have to be discounted –but can form the baseline for the monitoring of the indicator in the subsequent year. The example below provides more details. | ||||||||
DATA ENTRY AND DISAGGREGATION IN CORPORATE SYSTEMS | Values are recorded in the logframe. Each value has a reporting combination which is created based on:
Follow-up value is reported as:
Mandatory disaggregation for the follow-up value:
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BASELINE | Pre-intervention baseline is always zero. For continuing programmes, the baselines are the results from the previous school year. The baseline is always the yearly absolute value from the previous year. | ||||||||
TARGET SETTING | Annual targets: Context-specific. In contexts with lower retention rates and higher rates of out-of-school children, the programme should aim at increasing enrolment yearly. End of CSP target: Context-specific. In contexts with lower retention rates and higher rates of out-of-school children, the programme should aim at increasing enrolment. Targets should be set with caution, taking into consideration student-to-teacher ratios and maximum capacity of assisted schools. Sex disaggregation for target value is optional. | ||||||||
FREQUENCY OF DATA COLLECTION | Annually, at the beginning of the school year. | ||||||||
INTERPRETATION | A score of 0 percent indicates that no change in enrolment has occurred between the baseline and first year, i.e., that the number of children enrolled in school on that year is equal to the number of children enrolled on the previous year. A positive value (e.g. 15 percent) suggests an increase in enrolment for that school year, compared to the previous one, therefore more children were enrolled in school for the upcoming school year. In contexts with high rates of out-of-school children, it is ideal to increase the number of children who register to go to school, and school feeding acts as an incentive for families to enroll their children in school. As such, an increase in enrolment could indicate the effectiveness of the School Feeding Programme (along with other factors) to pull children back to school, and effectiveness of the School Feeding Programme to increase access to education. A negative value would mean a decrease in the number of enrolled students in WFP-assisted schools. By comparing annual change in enrolment across grades and sex, it is possible to assess whether the programme is achieving intended results (e.g., increase in enrolment rates for girls, or at higher grades). Results can also inform programmatic improvements, like the need to reinforce the programme with take-home rations for female students – if low enrolment rates for girls are identified. Where the disaggregation by sex shows a large discrepancy between the change in enrolment for girls and boys respectively, COs should investigate into(and report on) the reasons for this difference. Are households more inclined to send boys (or girls) to school who were previously not enrolled? Are households more inclined to let boys (or girls) migrate from a school without school meals to one that provides food? Depending on the results of the investigation, additional measures may be considered, e.g. to encourage the participation of girls or boys; to discourage the migration of boys (or girls) by better targeting of schools; or to better rule out migration during monitoring. The extent to which a high increase in enrolment indicates effectiveness of the programme should also be analyzed with caution. While school feeding provides an incentive for families to register children in school and WFP aims at increasing enrolment in targeted areas, some unintended outcomes may arise. For example, higher enrolment may lead to exceeding the maximum capacity of schools or increasing student-to-teacher ratio. Higher enrolment might also mean that children unregister from other schools to enroll in WFP-supported schools, which does not mean that school feeding enabled out-of school children to re-enroll in education. Also, suggest analyzing in the narrative considering output indicators (schools/institutional sites assisted, number of children reached and average number of feeding days for context). When reporting on the change in enrolment, a CO should clarify if and how much the programme has expanded by stating the number of additional schools, the number of girls and boys currently enrolled in these new schools – and stress that these numbers were not included in the calculation of the change in enrolment, but will enter the calculation in the following year if these schools continue to be covered then. Similarly, in case that schools are not covered by the programme anymore, they should not enter the calculation. Again, the CO should report how many schools with how many girls and boys have left the programme, and that this reduction has not been included in the calculation of the change in enrolment. | ||||||||
REPORTING EXAMPLE(S) | In 2017, WFP continued to assist three schools in the country. Average change of enrolment from the 2017 to 2018 was 32 percent. School rehabilitation and school feeding constituted a pull factor to school enrolment in post-conflict zones. Steps to calculate overall change in enrolment: Step 1: Determine the total number of enrolled children in the prior year. Step 2: Determine the total number of enrolled in the current year. Step 3: To determine the overall change per school: divide the difference between the two years by the total number enrolled in prior year and multiply by 100. The same logic should apply for change by sex. The following is an example of a sample worksheet for calculating Average Change in Enrolment:
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INDICATORS COLLECTED & ANALYSED AT THE SAME TIME |
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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:
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DECISIONS DATA CAN INFORM | This indicator can support many CO level decision, below are some suggestions:
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VISUALIZATION |
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LIMITATIONS | School enrolment is an important first step in guaranteeing sustained access to school for children. However, other elements of education are important to assess access to education more comprehensively, like whether children attended classes regularly, complete the school year, or whether learning is effective. 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. This indicator is only focused on WFP-assisted schools and does not compare to other schools unless a ‘comparison group’ is identified in the analysis. In addition, it does not relate to the population in the catchment area, thus does not put enrolment numbers in perspective. Interpretation of the indicator must be applied carefully to provide meaningful information. Two other points of attention while analyzing: (1) migration where students are transferring from non-assisted schools to assisted schools and (2) correct use of numbers to ensure that the increase in absolute enrolment is not due to a scale-up in programme coverage. 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 | Consult GHQ SBP team. | ||||||||
21. Annual Change in Enrolment
- Published on Apr 13, 2026
- 9 minute(s) read
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