Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Food safety management in schools is always a concernfor schools’ managing boards and parents.

The proportion of students at all levels in Hanoi registered for meals atschools is increasing. Many schools have invested in kitchen facilities toensure food safety and hygiene and established a food supervision team with theparticipation of students' parents. However, unfortunate incidents with schoolmeals still occur.

Recently, maggots were found in the meals of students of theEducation Science Experimental School in the capital's Ba Dinh district,causing great public concern.

According to the meal supplier Ha Thanh Company, the lorry the firmuses transports many different typesof goods, so before transporting the school meals, the food container was notcleaned and the lids of the food boxes were broken, causing other items tocontaminate the meals.

Although the incident was discovered early and did not cause any harm,questions about procedures to ensure food safety and hygiene in school mealswere raised.

Before that, on September 9 and 10 this year at Tien Duong Primary School in DongAnh district, dozens of students suffered food poisoning during lunch and hadsymptoms of abdominal pain, vomiting and dizziness.

Healthy authorities determined the cause to be microbiological. Inspectorsdiscovered that the warehouse of the food supplier Vu Quynh Company wasnear toilets, the food processing area was contaminated with insects andthe water used for food preparation was drilled well water and had notbeen tested as per regulations.

While such incidents are rare, they have caused many parents to worry.

Having two children registered for lunch at school, Vu Minh Nguyet, who livesin Tay Ho district, said that despite the school introducing the foodsuppliers and offering joint inspections with the school administration, shestill feels unsure about the school meals.

"Parents also struggle to thoroughly and regularly control the quality ofthe food entering the school kitchen because the inspection is only sensory. Ijust hope the school and the food supplier’s processing puts students' healthfirst so that parents can be assured when their children are at school everyday," Nguyet said.

Some parents, like Tran Thi Binh in Cau Giay district, have chosen to pick uptheir children from school at lunch time every day due to concerns about schoolmeals.

With the largest educational system in the country, Hanoi has nearly 2,200school kitchens, so food safety and hygiene in the kitchens is a focusof leaders of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training (DoET) andschools.

Pham Xuan Tien, deputy director of the department, said the DoET saw ensuringthe safety of students as its most important task, including safety forboarding meals.

Every year, the department works with the Department of Health and districtauthorities to regularly and irregularly inspect meals for students at schools,including the food supply process.

It holds the school principal responsible for controlling the food entryprocess.

Nguyen Thi Lieu, principal of the Doan Ket Primary School in Long Bien district,said that to serve more than 1,000 students who eat at the school, theschool has carefully selected reputable food suppliers. Not only based ondocuments and food safety accreditation certificates issued by the authorities,the school administrators and parents also inspect the place of food productionand processing.

"The school also keeps a close watch on daily menusand runs nutritional software according to the advice of supplier,but most importantly, we work based on the assessment and comments of studentsand students' parents. If there is a lot of food left by students, the schoolwill adjust immediately but still have to balance nutrition, ensuring thestudents’ health," Lieu said.

The reception of food in the morning is also seriously and fully implemented byGia Quat Primary School in Long Bien district. The inspection of food is doneregularly by the school, with clear requirements for food suppliers.

"The administrators and teachers are always observing and understandingstudents’ and parents' feedback on the quality of school meals to make timelyadjustments. Besides teaching knowledge, taking care of students’ health areequally important,” said Nguyen Thi Phuong, principal of Gia Quat PrimarySchool./.