Education

Number of children reached by National School Nutrition Programme

This data contains the average number of children who received meals per financial year through the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) in public schools in South Africa and the nine provinces. The programme aims to reach children attending public schools located in lower socioeconomic areas (or quintile 1 - 3 schools). Note: the data is patchy and incomplete because there is no one source. The NSNP produced annual reports up to 2013/2014. After that information on the number of children reached per year was not published in one place or consistently. The information from 2014/2015 onwards was extracted from the annual reports of the Department of Basic Education, the provincial education departments and, in the case of 2025/2026, a presentation by the NSNP presented in parliament. Caution: The provincial data extracted for 2015/2016 from the provincial annual reports does not add up to the South African total extracted from the DBE annual report.

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The data

6 rows, 11 columns.

year Category
Financial year. Starts 1 April, ends 31 March 2009/2010, 2011/2012, 2013/2014, 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2025/2026
eastern_cape Number
Number of children reached in Eastern Cape schools 1355689 – 1751931
free_state Number
Number of children reached in Free State schools 438937 – 585609
gauteng Number
Number of children reached in Gauteng schools 608189 – 1292811
kwazulu-natal Number
1791780 – 2273395
limpopo Number
Number of children reached in Limpopo schools 1229396 – 1686015
mpumalanga Number
Number of children reached in Mpumalanga schools 641023 – 1001685
northern_cape Number
Number of children reached in Northern Cape schools 174697 – 258983
north_west Number
Number of children reached in North West schools 484879 – 657952
western_cape Number
Number of children reached in Western Cape schools 334287 – 540406
south_africa Number
Number of children reached in South Africa's schools 7125273 – 9630590

First rows

yeareastern_capefree_stategautengkwazulu-natallimpopompumalanganorthern_capenorth_westwestern_capesouth_africa
2009/20101355689438937608189179178012293966410232410934848793342877125273
2011/201215891045172511012545214095915639948347471868295780724267078850208
2013/201416461425332521262749204459615364498741971976966136544231039131836
2014/20154565209210673
2015/201617519315732841292811227339515380628922022589836579524697219630590
2025/2026158389358560911638852110953168601510016851746976389615404069486104
Download all 6 rows: CSV JSON

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