Ensure food safety for boarding meals

In the 2025-2026 school year, along with innovation and improvement of teaching quality, ensuring food safety and hygiene (FSH) for boarding meals is also being focused on by schools throughout Quang Ninh province.

Boarding meal of students in class 1A1, Ha Long Primary School.

Right after the opening ceremony, Ha Long Primary School organized a boarding meal for students. The whole school had 1,490 students registered for boarding meals out of a total of 1,547 students. The number of students eating boarding meals is large, so ensuring food safety and hygiene is always a concern and focus of the school.

Teacher Nguyen Thi Huong, Principal of Ha Long Primary School, said: The unit providing meals for the school's students is the An Phu 2 ready-to-eat meal processing business, located in Bai Chay ward. The school's meal menu is made public to parents and students, changing daily and weekly, ensuring nutrition for the children. The school also coordinates with parents of students in each class to inspect the meal processing facility according to a specific weekly schedule, such as keeping food samples, checking the origin of food, utensils, and equipment for cooking. Teachers regularly remind and instruct students to wash their hands before entering the classroom, before eating, and after using the toilet.

According to the Department of Education and Training, in the 2024-2025 school year, the whole province has 394 schools organizing semi-boarding meals, including: 216 kindergartens, 133 primary schools, 33 secondary schools, and 12 high schools. In the 2025-2026 school year, according to the latest statistics, 217 preschool schools will organize semi-boarding meals, reaching 100% (an increase of 1 private school compared to the previous school year).

Food safety and hygiene issues in meals for boarding students play a very important role because it directly affects the health, mental and physical development of students. Therefore, this is a content that the Department of Education and Training is concerned about throughout each school year.

The Board of Directors of Ba Che Kindergarten (Ba Che commune) publicly announced the food portions and menu for children so that parents can clearly understand.

Since the beginning of 2025, the Department of Education and Training has focused on strengthening propaganda, dissemination and guidance measures for teachers and students on knowledge and correct practices on food safety, prevention of food poisoning and food-borne diseases; ensuring food safety for boarding kitchens and food services in schools.

For educational institutions that organize boarding but do not organize boarding kitchens, the Department of Education and Training requires that they sign contracts with establishments that fully comply with food safety requirements as prescribed. In addition, the Department of Education and Training also actively coordinates with local authorities to conduct food safety inspections of boarding kitchens, food businesses and catering services in educational institutions.

Notably, in May 2025, the Ministry of Education and Training organized a training course on organizing boarding meals for primary schools in Quang Ninh with the participation of 397 trainees, including management staff, medical staff and cooks from 176 primary schools organizing boarding meals for students in the whole province. Through the training course, the management staff, medical staff and cooks at the schools have improved their awareness and professional capacity in organizing boarding meals for students.

According to the report of the Department of Education and Training, last school year, educational units and institutions in the province basically strictly implemented the directives and instructions of all levels and sectors on ensuring food safety and hygiene. There are measures to ensure nutritional quality and food safety when organizing boarding and semi-boarding meals, canteen activities, and food services for cadres, teachers, employees, children, and students according to regulations, such as: Cleaning the landscape; cleaning the kitchen, food processing tools, equipment; hygiene in food processing, purchasing food with a clear address, strictly implementing the food processing process, 3 steps of daily food sample inspection and storage according to regulations...

Awareness of the importance of disease prevention and food safety among cadres, teachers, staff, students and trainees in the entire education sector has been raised. Therefore, the whole province has not had any cases of food poisoning or violations of food safety regulations at educational institutions.

Lan Anh

Source: https://baoquangninh.vn/dam-bao-vsattp-cac-bua-an-ban-tru-3375496.html