Despite increasing enrollment and promotion rates during the 1990’s, dropout and repetition rates remain a concern in Vietnamese primary education. Ministry of Education and Training data indicate that the repetition and dropout rates for the 1999-2000 school year were 2.8% and 4.7%, respectively, or 7.5% in total. Grades one and five are the most problematic grades for students.

While the other three commodities were sold, the non-fat dried milk valued at $2.6 million was used in the production and bartered with a large state-owned milk processing company in exchange for 16,087,963 units of finished 200-milliliter UHT milk to be distributed directly to the schools. A total of 3,479,172 units of milk were distributed and consumed through March 31, 2002, with an additional 3.5 million units estimated to be distributed through the end of the 2001/2002 school year. The balance of the barter contract will be supplied in September and October at the start of the 2002/03 school years.

At that time, the fortified biscuits made with U.S. wheat will also be distributed. Indications from the Ministry of Planning and Investment are that all processors supplying milk and biscuits to the program will receive a value added tax (VAT) rebate. The LOL-VINAMILK barter contract has a clause that states that in the event of any VAT rebate, all savings will be passed back to the school feeding program in the form of additional quantities of milk units, estimated to be another 1.65 million units more than the contract-stipulated total. Similar clauses will be included in any future milk and biscuit contracts.

Most children in rural Vietnam travel long distances to get to school, and many arrive without having eaten breakfast. A healthy snack provided by the VSNAP would give these children micronutrients and calories that would reduce their hunger and should lead to improved performance and a better quality educational experience. A positive educational experience would encourage more students to go on to secondary and high school, where enrollment rates are currently 60% and lower – significantly less than the government-reported 100-% rates for enrollment at the primary school level. LOL decided to try to have some impact through the GFE project on the dropout and repetition rates seen in grades one and two.

In the LOL-USDA agreement, LOL proposed to carry out a large distribution program. This would include delivering milk and nutritious biscuits as a daily snack to 400,000 primary school children in several targeted regions of the country to be chosen by a committee of government and private sector representatives. However, the Government of Vietnam does not allow international donor projects of more than $500,000 to be implemented without concurrence of all government ministries. This approval process can take a long time. Therefore, LOL and MOET agreed to carry out a small pilot project feeding 65,000 primary school students in the Mekong River Delta region.

The Delta area was chosen for the pilot because of the high dropout rate the region experienced during the October-December rainy season, when flooding was unusually heavy. The Delta region’s proximity by automobile to Ho Chi Minh City (three to five hours) would allow both LOL and the processors to monitor logistics and manage other reporting issues carefully in the pilot phase.

Both LOL and the Government of Vietnam wanted to implement the VSNAP pilot project as soon as possible in order to reach hungry children and also to reduce the time for the approval of the project expansion to the original GFE project size. Because the commodities, and the revenues from their sale, would not arrive until the end of December 2001, LOL decided to advance its own funds so that the project could begin in September. The staff immediately began the implementation planning and startup activities. In early January 2002, milk distribution began to 65,000 beneficiaries daily in 301 school locations in the Mekong River Delta region.

The VSNAP daily nutritious snack consists of a 200-milliliter carton of fortified milk and a nutritious wheat biscuit. The two products combined provide the children with 300 calories and about 50% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of needed vitamins and minerals. The 300 calories represent about 60% of the estimated calorie deficit facing children in rural Vietnam. The snack, combined with planned de-worming twice a year, is expected to have significant impact on the nutritional status of children participating in the program.

An additional component of LOL’s GFE project is to strengthen the production capacity of dairy and food producers in the private sector. Technical assistance through LOL and other technical specialists will be targeted at those producers with the goal of expanding their capacity and improving the quality of their products.

Goals and objectives: The goals of the VSNAP are to increase enrollment and attendance by 20% and increase overall performance in primary schools. LOL staff also expected to improve dairy and food processing operations in the country.

Midterm: To date, the most significant challenge for LOL has been the Government of Vietnam’s requirement that all foreign non-governmental aid programs valued at more than $500,000 undergo an extensive review and approval process that can take anywhere from three to eight months. While government officials conducted the review of the LOL GFE proposal, LOL and its lead partner, the Ministry of Education and Training, launched a pilot program so that milk could be distributed to students in the second half of the 2001/2002 school year. The pilot experience provided the VSNAP an opportunity to gain product, distribution, and program implementation experience needed to expand the program to 315,000 beneficiaries in the central and northern regions of Vietnam. In July 2002, VSNAP received official notification from the government that the program can be expanded for the 2002/2003 school year.

LOL has been very effective in coordinating its project with a number of governmental and non-governmental organizations. Examples include:

Final: Some local firms and foreign organizations, such as UNICEF and An Giang Plant Protection Cop., provided school bags, notebooks, pens and also scholarships to bright students living in poor families in the provinces of Long An and Dong Thap. This school year is the first time the P.T.A supplied 500 notebooks for children in DUONG VAN HOA school ( Dong Thap ).

The program was able to obtain support from private sector benefiting from the program such as Tetra Pak, who contribute 50% to cost of burners; and Roche, who paid for 50% of the cost of the brochure on the value of fortified foods designed to target parents.

Midterm: During June-August 2002, LOL will be seeking to identify linkages with other groups working in the areas of nutrition education and education support programs. LOL has collaborated with a French company on development of a fortified biscuit.

As discussed previously, LOL has developed significant support from other agencies of the Vietnamese government and the private sector. The Ministry of Health has added a de-worming component to the VSNAP. The National Nutrition Office has also been involved in technical assistance with nutrition education.

Sustainability: LOL worked with the Vietnamese Government to establish the organizational capacity within Vietnam to assume management responsibility for a school feeding program.

Final: See evaluation methodology in Appendix 1.

Midterm: Both USDA and LOL are carrying out monitoring and evaluation activities of the pilot project.

There are 301 schools participating in the VSNAP pilot project. Ninety-six are centrally located main schools, and 205 are branch locations of those main schools. Enrollment in these schools ranges from the 1,300 students to only five students, with the main schools generally being much larger than the branch locations. The 96 main schools were grouped based on geographic location and a median per school enrollment of 360 students. One school, ThoTraan, was pre-selected for analysis because its enrollment of 1,300 students was by far the largest.

Final: The Government of Vietnam has prioritized population and family planning in recent years. In 1999, women in the childbearing age group had an average of 2.3 children compared with 3.8 ten years ago. Additionally, the child mortality rate in 2000 and 2001 was 2.7 and 3% respectively. Both of these factors have contributed to the declining numbers of students enrolled in school. While the numbers are down, the percentage of school aged children enrolled in and attending school still remains high.

Another factor making trend measurement hard is that the Government of Vietnam had initiated a program, starting in 1994, to get children into school and finish basic education. Enrollment peaked at 12.2 million in 1997 and included children aged 6-18 years, or older because the Government wanted to ensure primary education for all. Enrollment from 1994 – 1997 increased from 8.9 to 12.2 million (37%) and included many older students. After 1997, enrollment started to decline because the age range being considered as "school age" reduced from earlier period and included mostly children in the 6-14 year old range. Current school year statistics are counting only 6-12 year-old students, with the older students out of the system.

While the birthrate for 2000 was up as mentioned previously, the child mortality rate remained about the same, offsetting the increase, which means that school age population has not been increasing.

Attachment 1 includes statistics for the Mekong River Delta region, the area that has participated in VSNAP the longest. The numbers enrolled follow general population trends, but there has been an impact on the retention/drop out rate as well as performance by students. LOL plans to continue to track and follow performance trends in schools participating in the program as a good area to measure impact.

Mr Hoa, the Leader of the Department of Education and Training (DOET ), of Thap Muoi District, stated that "the USDA/ GFEI program in Vietnam gave Vietnamese children who live in the poorest areas many good things. Three things we can recognize are: First: Improvement in their health and performance, physically more energetic and eager to learn. Second: Drop out rate is decreased. Third: The relationship between PTA and schools has improved. I would like to say thank you so much to U.S. Department of Agriculture for sponsoring this program and LOL for implementing this program in Vietnam."

Enrollment: In an interview of the Headmaster of the My Hoa 1 School in Dong Thap Province, he stated, "Thanks to the GFEI program. After the severe flood had gone we announced the day for the children to return to school, and to our surprise all of the children attended classes on time. Because of the distribution of milk and biscuit, we did not have go to their houses to get them as in past years."

Attendance: Parents in poor families said that when the harvest season comes their children would attend classes instead of working in the fields like the years before, especially the girls. After receiving GFEI milk and biscuits, an underprivileged fifth grade boy, who repeated the same grade level for three years, is determined to study hard and finish primary school and enter into high school. Also, his parents decided to let him go to school instead of helping them in the fields during harvest time.

Performance: Teachers observed that children are more alert and eager when their stomachs are full. After a few months of receiving milk their performance improved significantly with an increased attention span, a willingness to answer questions, and increased energy after recess to learn. Some even became good students in math.

Enrollment and attendance: Overall numbers show no significant change in enrollment and attendance rates in the first three months of the VSNAP, and no change is expected in the April-June reporting period. Pressure on schools and administrators to meet enrollment and attendance goals established in Hanoi make it difficult to accurately track improvements in enrollment and attendance. The following chart illustrates the high rate of attendance in the three pilot areas. The reason that children do not enroll in or attend school is usually the difficulty of travel. In many cases, it can take two to three hours by boat or walking to reach the school. Children are also absent or not enrolled because of the need for them to help on the farm or to watch younger siblings.

Special emphasis on girls: Primary school enrollment and attendance figures for boys and girls are comparable. The reasons children have to miss school are the same for boys and girls, but girls are kept home to help more often than boys. LOL is examining a number of non-food strategies to implement for the 2002/03 school year to promote school attendance by girls.

Other project achievements: One of the objectives of the LOL-GFE project is to stimulate private sector processing and distribution of processed products to schools. LOL has observed that many high-quality milk and cookie products are never distributed beyond urban centers. Working with VSNAP will help processors gain experience and

access to more remote areas and markets. LOL plans to focus on this area in the coming months. Initial areas of concentration will be in product development and taste improvement.

Unanticipated Outcomes: Fortified biscuit products developed through VSNAP could have a commercial future. Much of the population suffers from a serious micronutrient deficiency, and fortified biscuit products are not available on the market. The fortified biscuit product developed by VSNAP can be purchased and delivered to remote rural communities for the same price as children pay for "junk" food items sold at local kiosks. LOL is encouraged to think that if the VSNAP-developed fortified biscuit is priced competitively, it could have a commercial future.

Final: The job of distributing product to and monitoring consumption and attendance at 2,071 schools requires more staff and training than originally anticipated.

Strong and supportive partners are key to both short and long term success.

Changing the package of milk to save money has increased the number of children who receive the nutritious snack food in new school year 2003.

Storage at the school locations are essential to prevent destruction of supplies.

Have a distribution system that is adaptable to meet the needs.

Midterm: LOL originally planned to feed more children sooner. However, the pilot program worked well given the bureaucratic obstacles, distribution and infrastructure issues, product development and packaging cycles, and timing of commodity arrival. Over the course of the five month pilot, the VSNAP staff learned the following lessons that will be incorporated into the larger program:

Final: A father of a 5^th grader said, "School has done a lot of things for our children by the GFE program providing nutritious snack food last school year and this year adding fortified biscuit. It is important that we cooperate with the school and take responsibilities for our children future.

Midterm: Teachers at Hung Dien B Primary School (Tan Hung, Long An) report that many pupils have experienced rapid weight gain after three months of consuming milk. For example, student Nguyen Ngoc Dang of class 5/1 gained five kilograms (11 pounds). He weighed 35 kilograms (77 pounds) before but now weighs 40 kilograms (88 pounds). Pupils Duong Thanh Nam (class 4/1) and Nguyen Cong Danh (Class 2/1) both gained four kilograms (around 9 pounds).

Primary school An Thoi Dong is a very quiet area, even though it’s in the center of An Thoi Dong ward. At 8:50 a.m., the school drum sounds three times, and the school comes alive with the sound of students shouting for joy. Despite their noise, the children remain seated. Tran Van Lang, the man responsible for receiving and distributing milk at this school, explains, "This first set of drum beats is the signal that it is milk time." Then the drum beats 10 minutes, telling the teachers it is time to collect milk for their students. This is why the students wait patiently at their desks. After the milk is consumed, the drum beats again indicating that the children can go outside and play for their morning recess. Since the beginning of the milk program, the children at An Thoi Dong Primary School call the first morning drum beat the "milk drum beat" and it is their favorite drum beat of the day.

A teacher in a primary school in Dong Thap said: "I’m very grateful to the school milk program because, thanks to this program, I rarely have to encourage children to go to school. The children become so milk-addicted that the attendance is normally 100%. During school time, they just look forward to milk time. Sometimes I forget about milk time and they remind me right away. They rush out with eager faces whenever I bring the milk to the classroom." Another teacher reported, "There are 38 pupils in my class. Most of them love to drink milk. Lately, the only time they are absent from school is when they are sick. When they came back, they often comment that being sick meant that they missed having milk that day. School milk really helps us a lot in attracting pupils to schools."

At Khanh Hung Primary School, the parents of a third grade pupil came to see the teachers and requested them not to give their son more milk, complaining that "my child is gaining weight too fast. Only last month, I bought him a new set of clothes, but today they do not fit anymore. We are afraid he will be obese." The principal explained that gaining weight is a good sign, and their son will not become obese from drinking milk. However, the parents did not believe the school principal and took their son to a local clinic for examination. Only after the doctor concluded that the boy’s health and weight were fine did the parents calm down and listen to their son’s urgings that they allow him to keep drinking the milk.