Abstract — The study investigated the need for capacity strengthening of rural women towards nutrition management of school-going children, conducted in four villages purposively selected from Lama upazila under Bandarban district of Bangladesh. A total of 110 households were selected with data collected from the women of those households through face-to-face setting using pretested interview schedule. Measurement for the need for women’s capacity strengthening used 21 issues under four broad dimensions such as ‘need for decision-making ability’, ‘need for support services’, need for managerial skill’ and ‘need for physical facilities’ were formulated. A four-point rating scale with the responses like ‘no’, ‘low’, ‘medium’ and ‘high’ was administered with their corresponding scores such as 0, 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient (r) was computed to explore the relationships between selected characteristics of the respondents and their extent of need for capacity strengthening. The findings indicated that for all the four dimensions, the highest proportion of respondents were noticed with medium to high level of need for capacity strengthening towards maintaining school-going children’s nutrition. Among the dimensions, the highest percentage of respondents (64.44%) was reported with the issues related to the dimension of need for decision-making ability. Correlation analysis indicated that respondents’ year of schooling, annual family income, training exposure and household dietary diversity had significant positive relationships with their extent of need for capacity strengthening. It deems necessary to undertake and follow up women focused development initiatives in study areas through better access to resources, inputs and services so that the women folks can play their greater role in maintaining household nutrition for household in general and for school-going children in particular.
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