Ensuring the quality of school meals

The new school year 2025-2026 has started for more than a month, which is also the time when millions of students in the capital city enter the days of studying, living and eating at school. Each midday meal is not just a meal, but also a trust of parents in the school - where their children are cared for both intellectually and physically.

Lunch for students at Vo Thi Sau Primary School (Cua Nam ward).

Large scale - large pressure

Hanoi has a large educational scale with nearly 2.3 million students and about more than 2,900 schools at all levels, of which the number of students eating at school is about more than 1 million students at 3 levels: preschool, primary and secondary school. According to the report of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training, there are currently 1,455 schools organizing their own meals, 647 schools cooperating with food suppliers and 283 schools ordering meals from outside suppliers.

Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training Vuong Huong Giang said that the 2025-2026 school year is the first year the city implements Resolution No. 18/2025/NQ-HDND on the mechanism to support boarding meals for primary school students. This is a humane policy, creating positive impacts in many aspects, helping to reduce financial pressure on parents.

“When the scale of boarding schools increases sharply, management requirements must certainly be improved. The new policy is a driving force for schools that have done well in the past to now do better in investing in facilities and equipment, standardizing one-way kitchens, and tightening supervision from the stage of selecting food sources, processing, preparation, and distribution. The Department of Education and Training will coordinate with the Department of Health , relevant departments and branches, and local authorities to strengthen inspections and checks to avoid food portion cuts or food safety problems,” Ms. Vuong Huong Giang shared.

Quan Hoa Kindergarten (Nghia Do ward), has nearly 300 boarding preschool children every day.

According to Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Health Vu Cao Cuong, school meals play a very important role, not only providing energy for students after school, but also directly affecting their physical, intellectual and psychological development. Although the city has issued many guiding documents to strengthen food safety in and around schools, the implementation also has significant difficulties such as extracting the origin and provenance of food supplied to school kitchens, legal documents to trace the origin of livestock breeding, production, processing facilities, preliminary processing and processing at schools...

Most recently, when the case of food of unknown origin being "magically" labeled as safe and mixed into the kitchens of some schools in Hanoi was discovered, the trust of many parents was eroded again. Although this is only a small food supplier and the number of schools using this unit's goods is not much, many parents are still worried and anxious when registering their children to participate in the school's semi-boarding meals.

“When sending our children to school, in addition to our concern for their studies, our children’s safety is our greatest concern. It is both injury safety and food safety. We trust the school but still hope for closer and more transparent supervision so that each meal for our children is not only delicious and of good quality but above all, it is safe,” said Nguyen Van Viet, a parent whose child studies at Dinh Cong Primary School (Dinh Cong Ward).

Sharing the same concern about her child's meals at school, Ms. Vu Thi Le, a parent whose child studies at Nghia Tan Primary School (Nghia Do Ward), said that each meal and each afternoon snack at school is not simply to fill the stomach, but is also a sign of parents' trust in the school - where their children are taken care of both intellectually and physically.

“Every day when I pick my child up, I ask him if he had fun at school today and if he ate well. That is something we, as parents, care about as much as our child’s studies in class,” Ms. Vu Thi Le shared.

Strict control of food input

Parents of students at Vo Thi Sau Primary School (Cua Nam Ward) cooperate with the school to check the quality of meals.

In response to parents’ concerns and worries, many schools in Hanoi have developed procedures and proactively implemented steps to tighten food control procedures right from the input stage. Not only schools with kitchens but also schools that order ready-made meals have raised awareness in choosing suppliers, while promoting coordination between schools - parents - suppliers to prevent poor quality food from entering students’ meals.

Teacher Nguyen Thanh Ha, Vice Principal of Vo Thi Sau Primary School (Cua Nam Ward) said that due to the small physical facilities and lack of conditions to organize a kitchen, the school coordinated with a unit to provide ready-made meals for students. In the 2025-2026 school year, the school has 373 students registered for boarding at 2 school locations, so the school is always careful in organizing boarding meals at every stage.

“Among the units that have been assessed and selected by Cua Nam ward, we went with parents and students to inspect on-site, reviewing the conditions and criteria, in which transparency of origin and the prestige of the business are put first. All information is publicly announced by the school to parents. After receiving consensus from the school and the parents' committee, we signed the contract,” Ms. Nguyen Thanh Ha shared.

For preschool level, boarding meals are even more important because students are young children with weak resistance. Therefore, the quality and food safety in each boarding meal is the "shield" to protect children's health.

At Quan Hoa Kindergarten (Nghia Do Ward), nearly 300 preschool children eat semi-boarding meals every day. The entire process from receiving and delivering raw materials to processing will take about 2.5 - 3 hours. Food suppliers must have their records reviewed and inspected by the Ward People's Committee. To ensure safety, the school absolutely does not accept pre-processed food; all must be in their original packaging and in one piece. If a problem is found in the product during processing, the kitchen staff must immediately notify the Board of Directors and medical staff to make a record, take pictures, and request a return.

Teacher Vu Thi Kieu Nga, Principal of Quan Hoa Kindergarten, said that the school requires the kitchen staff to strictly follow the regulations: During processing, kitchen staff must comply with labor protection regulations, separating raw and cooked food. Samples of cooked meals are kept for 24 hours according to regulations, with seals and records for comparison when needed. Thanks to strict implementation of the regulations, the school has not had any food safety incidents so far.

In addition, in addition to internal inspections, the school also coordinates with the district, ward and parents to participate in inspecting the supply facilities every year. Last September, the school inspected the milk supplier, and in October it will inspect the food supplier. During the inspections, the school always invites parent representatives to come along for public supervision. In addition, inspection teams from the ward People's Committee, health, and veterinary also regularly visit the school kitchen to test and check boarding procedures and records.

Shared responsibility

A standard boarding meal is not only a measure of the school's organizational capacity, but also reflects the responsibility of the whole society in protecting children.

To ensure food safety in school meals, so that every school day is truly a happy, safe and healthy day for students, it is necessary to have the synchronous participation of the political system, managers, and local authorities, to carry out well the work of inspection and supervision, to ensure safe food processing and traceability of food origin.

After directly going to the school to supervise the lunch, Mr. Vu Long, the parent of a 4th grader at Vo Thi Sau Primary School, immediately took a photo and shared it on the class's parent group. Mr. Long believes that ensuring the quality of the children's meals requires the cooperation of both the family and the school. This way, parents will feel more secure and confident in the school's commitment to the quality of the meals.

“For us, each child’s meal is an important part of the education and care process. Awareness of ensuring food safety is not just a regulation, but has become the responsibility and culture of the school,” shared teacher Vu Thi Kieu Nga, Principal of Quan Hoa Kindergarten.

Recently, Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Tran Sy Thanh signed Decision No. 4981/QD-UBND dated October 3 on the establishment of an interdisciplinary inspection team for organizing boarding meals for students at schools in the city for the 2025-2026 school year. The team will conduct surprise inspections from October 6, 2025 to May 31, 2026 across the city, in wards and communes that organize boarding meals for students.

The delegation will inspect the organization of selection, signing of contracts and supervision of contract implementation by schools with food, milk and bottled water suppliers; compliance with food safety laws and related conditions according to Instruction No. 02/BCĐ-HD of the City Food Safety Steering Committee for suppliers.

Ensuring food safety and quality of meals for students is a mandatory requirement, closely linked to the health, physical and mental development of future generations. In the context of epidemics, food contamination and the risk of poisoning still lurking, tightening the process of controlling food sources, processing, preserving and storing samples becomes more urgent.

A standard lunch is not only a measure of the school’s organizational capacity, but also reflects the responsibility of the whole society in protecting children. When each meal is prepared with seriousness, transparency and love, it is the most practical way to nurture generations of healthy, happy and confident students.

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/giao-duc/dam-bao-chat-luong-bua-an-hoc-duong-20251009110535560.htm