The 2023-2024 school year has passed half way. Over the past several months, the story of boarding meals at some schools in Ho Chi Minh City has received great public attention because the quality is not guaranteed.
According to Dan Viet’s research, most schools publicize weekly and monthly boarding menus for students and parents. Schools also organize periodic and unexpected inspections to ensure food safety and hygiene; ensure meal quality.
Students are graded on the quality of boarding meals
At Minh Duc Secondary School (District 1), school leaders said that because the school was repairing and rebuilding some items, boarding had to temporarily suspend operations. For many months, boarding students have been eating industrial meals.
Many schools let students rate the quality of boarding meals. Photo: MQ
Even though industrial meals are used, school leaders said that meal supervision is still a top priority. Accordingly, the school has publicized the boarding menu, organized for parents to come to the school to visit the process of serving meals, weigh, divide, store samples and distribute to each class as well as eat meals with their children at school. …
The school’s board of directors, officials and teachers also inspect the industrial kitchen regularly and periodically with parents and student parent representatives.
In particular, once a month, the school organizes for students to evaluate the quality of meals on the menu for the month. Students are evaluated on the quality of the meal through 4 levels: Very delicious, delicious, not delicious, bad.
After receiving the student’s assessment, the staff in charge will analyze this data and request the meal provider to make adjustments.
In Ho Chi Minh City, inviting parents to school to study and eat with their children is implemented by many schools. Photo: MQ
It is known that allowing students to rate meals has been done by schools for many years, even when students eat meals cooked from the school kitchen.
Like Minh Duc High School, Luong Dinh Cua Secondary School (Thu Duc City) also allows students to evaluate the quality of boarding meals at two levels: quality and non-quality.
School leaders shared that the survey will help the school know the quality of meals through student assessments. From there, promptly make appropriate adjustments.
The leader of Nguyen Huu Tho High School (District 4), shared that there are currently 3 popular forms to organize boarding kitchens for students, including: The school itself organizes boarding kitchens, and contracts with supply companies. provides meals and contracts with school canteens to cook meals for students right at school.
In particular, the school organizing its own boarding kitchen is an ideal model because the school board and parents will easily manage and supervise. However, not every school can do it because it depends on the conditions of each school. On the contrary, ordering industrial meals will be more difficult to manage because the school cannot check regularly.
For Nguyen Huu Tho High School, the school is currently collaborating with the school canteen to cook meals for students. A teacher on the school’s board of directors will eat with the children to monitor the quality of the meal. In particular, parents can come to school at any time, without prior notice, to eat with their children.
Previously, the inspection team of the Food Safety Management Team – Ho Chi Minh City Food Safety Management Board inspected 2,316 collective kitchens, canteens, catering services, and food businesses. in 2,016 educational establishments (1,374 self-organized collective kitchens, 140 contract collective kitchens, 9 self-organized canteens, 466 contract canteens, 325 schools receiving ready-made meals) and 2 establishments providing ready meals for schools.
Test results showed that no errors occurred in any unit. In particular, legal documents are stored by schools quite completely, neatly arranged, and easy to find. Most schools are balanced and use fresh ingredients and foods during the day.
Raw materials and food inputs all have clear origins, proven origin through contracts, invoices and supplier capabilities. Of these, there are 1,220 establishments certified “Safe Food Chain” and 1,411 establishments certified ISO22000, HACCP, VietGap, GlobalGap…
Regarding human resources in charge of ensuring food safety at schools, the assessment team assessed that managers and people directly involved in processing have good awareness of the principles of ensuring food safety in use. food processing and preservation.
At the same time, schools arrange medical staff to regularly check kitchens, which also contributes to ensuring food safety for collective kitchens at schools.
