“Evaluatie Programma Schoolmaaltijden: Effecten op lees- en rekenvaardigheden van leerlingen in het regulier basisonderwijs”

The School Meals Programme was launched in the spring of 2023. Primary schools where more than 30% of the pupil population comes from low-income families are eligible to take part. Once a school has registered, it can either provide meals for its pupils on site or issue grocery vouchers to parents to use for shopping. We analyse the programme by examining its overall effects, as well as the separate effects of school meals and grocery vouchers on reading comprehension and numeracy. We find, on average, positive effects for schools that offer grocery vouchers in terms of maths. Pupils at schools that offer grocery vouchers achieve, on average, higher results in maths than pupils at schools that do not participate in the programme. On average, we find no effects for pupils at schools that offer meals. This means that we cannot demonstrate that offering school meals has an average positive effect on test results for reading comprehension and numeracy.

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Jacobs, M., van Wetten, S., & Haelermans, C. (2026). Evaluatie Programma Schoolmaaltijden: Effecten op lees- en rekenvaardigheden van leerlingen in het regulier basisonderwijs. Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market. ROA Fact Sheets No. 001 https://doi.org/10.26481/umarof.2026001