Hunger makes it hard to focus at school: what learners in South Africa told us about food insecurity

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Hunger is often treated as a household or poverty problem. But it can also become an education problem. When learners are hungry, it can be difficult to concentrate, participate in lessons and remain focused throughout the school day.

Many South African children go to school without having enough food to eat. A learner may arrive in class with books, a school uniform and a teacher ready to teach, but with an empty stomach.

Food insecurity happens when people do not have stable access to enough safe and nutritious food to meet their basic dietary requirements.

The scale of food insecurity and hunger among school pupils in South Africa is huge. Official statistics say that 9.7 million learners in more than 21,000 schools rely on school meals as a major source of their nutrition. South Africa recognises the importance of nutrition as a means of improving learner performance through school feeding programmes. These offer an important source of food for learners, especially for those from poorer areas.

Despite getting a meal in the middle of the school day, some learners don't have regular meals on weekends or during school holidays.

As researchers working in agricultural sciences and educational psychology, we set out to understand whether there was a relationship between food insecurity and learners' classroom performance in a rural school in South Africa. We chose the Tshehlo Secondary School in Limpopo, South Africa's northernmost province, because it is in a community with high levels of unemployment and poverty levels well above national averages.

For four weeks we observed and spoke to 40 grade 10, 11 and 12 learners (with an average age of 17) on different academic-performance levels to understand their experiences. In particular, we explored:

• how a lack of food affected learners' ability to concentrate and pay attention

• whether it was associated with differences in academic achievement (while we did not measure the link statistically, we compared the experiences of learners with higher and lower marks, using qualitative evidence to understand how food insecurity affected their learning)

• how the experiences of learners from food-secure and food-insecure households differed.

Our research found that learners who experienced food insecurity had difficulties with concentration and attention in class. Hunger made it harder for them to remain focused on a lesson, participate in classroom activities or maintain an interest in schoolwork.

Our findings show how important it is to make sure that learners have enough food to participate properly in school, especially in rural and disadvantaged schools. The South African government budgeted almost 29% of the education budget towards the National School Nutrition Programme for 2026 – about R10.3 billion (over US$600 million). A total of R33.9 billion (over US$2 billion) was allocated over three years to feed millions of learners.

To improve the situation, the government must consider allowing provincial basic education departments to purchase food from local farmers or suppliers directly without the involvement of many middlemen as this would clearly save costs. The saved money could be spent on improving the school meals.

Schools should also set up stronger support for learners experiencing food insecurity by identifying those who regularly attend classes hungry and linking them to available school nutrition and learner-support services. Teachers should be supported in recognising signs of hunger-related difficulties, while learners should have access to a safe and supportive environment where they can seek assistance without fear of stigma. This can help reduce the effects of hunger on classroom participation, concentration and learning.

This way, financial resources will go far in ensuring that learners get the food they require. Mandatory school gardens and district-level farms could also supplement food supplies, create agricultural opportunities and improve learners' access to nutritious meals.

How hunger affects learning, attendance and classroom behaviour

Our research found that not having enough food to eat affected learners in the following ways:

1. Hunger makes it harder to think and concentrate

The students told us that hunger negatively affected their concentration, memory and classroom participation. Hunger can undermine the cognitive and behavioural conditions necessary for effective learning, potentially contributing to poorer academic achievement. As one learner told us: “It becomes difficult to concentrate when you have not eaten at all. How do you expect someone to concentrate for five hours with an empty stomach?”

2. Physical and emotional exhaustion

Hunger causes physical fatigue and emotional distress. This reduces learners' participation in class. Another learner told us:

Some of us do not participate in class because of hunger.

3. Attendance and absenteeism

Participants reported that food-insecure learners arrived at school hungry, without having eaten breakfast. When school meals are not regular, or when they are too hungry, some learners don't come to school at all, they told us. As learners said:

I have a friend of mine who has been absent for two weeks because of not having food to eat at his place. How do you advise such a learner to come to school when there is also nothing to eat at school?

Some of the learners do not attend classes because of physical fatigue caused by hunger.

4. Behavioural problems in class

We also found that hunger contributed to frustration, restlessness and disruptive classroom behaviour, with a learner saying:

It is not easy to control your behaviour in the classroom if you are hungry.

These findings do not mean that every hungry learner will perform poorly or that every learner who struggles academically is experiencing hunger. Academic performance is influenced by many factors, including teaching, home circumstances, motivation, learning resources and individual differences.

But our findings suggest that food insecurity should not be ignored when we try to understand why some learners struggle at school.

What needs to happen next

First, schools need to keep making nutrition programmes stronger. It's important that meals reach learners consistently and that each meal is nutritious.

Second, learner support should go beyond academic performance. Food insecurity needs to be treated as a shared social responsibility rather than something individual families must solve on their own.

Third, education authorities need to recognise nutrition as part of the broader strategy for improving educational outcomes. Policies dealing with learner achievement need to take into account the conditions learners are living under when they plan to improve classroom performance.

Fourth, partnerships between schools, communities, government departments, non-governmental organisations and agricultural programmes are needed. School and community food gardens, where appropriate, can complement nutrition initiatives while also giving learners practical knowledge about food production and healthy eating.

Finally, making agriculture compulsory in schools could be a step towards building a food-secure South Africa, where every learner understands the value of food production, nutrition and sustainable use of natural resources. By integrating agriculture into the curriculum, the country can cultivate a new generation of self-reliant citizens who understand sustainable resource management and modern food production techniques in a changing climate.

Michael Mbongiseni Buthelezi also serves at UMALUSI as an ACC (Accreditation Council Committee) member from 2026 to 2030.

Lusanda Ncisana does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

By Lusanda Ncisana, Lecturer, University of Limpopo And

Michael Mbongiseni Buthelezi, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education Studies, University of Limpopo