Supporting boarding meals - improving stature and intelligence for students in the capital

At the seminar "Ensuring food safety and quality of school meals" in Hanoi organized by Kinh te & Do thi Newspaper on the afternoon of September 5, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training Vuong Huong Giang shared about the humane significance of the policy of supporting boarding meals for primary school students in the capital as well as ensuring food safety in school meals.

Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Education and Training Vuong Huong Giang.

-Madam, the 2025-2026 school year is the first year that Hanoi City implements Resolution 18/2025/NQ-HDND on the mechanism to support boarding meals for primary school students. What do you expect?   What is the impact of this policy on the quality of school meals and food safety management?   Food safety in the coming time ?

-The 2025-2026 school year is an important milestone, because for the first time, Hanoi City has implemented Resolution No. 18/2025/NQ-HDND on the mechanism to support boarding meals for primary school students. This is a humane policy, demonstrating the City's special concern for the comprehensive development of the capital's young generation. We expect this policy to create positive impacts in many aspects.

Firstly, about the quality of school meals. Supporting school meals from the budget helps reduce financial pressure on parents. In addition, it encourages nearly 100% of primary school students to participate in school meals. Thus, almost all primary school students in the capital enjoy nutritious meals, balanced in energy; thereby helping to improve health, physical fitness, and learning outcomes.

Second, regarding food safety assurance. 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, to the stage of preliminary processing, preparation, and distribution.

The Department of Education and Training will coordinate with the Department of Health and relevant departments and local authorities to strengthen inspections to prevent food rations or food safety violations.

Third, we also expect this policy to contribute to forming scientific nutritional habits for students, improving the stature, intelligence, physical condition and health of students in the capital. At the same time, this is an important step to build a safe, friendly and quality school environment; making a practical contribution to the goal of developing sustainable human resources for the capital and the country in the future.

-Madam, recently the Food Safety Steering Committee   Hanoi City has issued Instruction No. 02/BCĐ-HD dated July 15, 2025 on food safety assessment of boarding meals for students at public schools in the city in the 2025-2026 school year. Could you please share the assessment of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training on the propaganda work to units, schools, and parents of students on the directive documents and coordination work with communes and wards to direct kindergartens, primary schools, and secondary schools in organizing boarding meals according to regulations?

-Instruction No. 02/BCĐ-HD dated July 15, 2025 on food safety assessment of boarding meals of the City Food Safety Steering Committee is an important basis for schools to organize safe and proper boarding meals in the 2025-2026 school year. As soon as the above instructions were issued, the Department of Education and Training synchronously deployed tasks, focusing mainly on two groups of contents: propaganda work and coordination work with local authorities.

Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training Vuong Huong Giang shared at the discussion: "Ensuring food safety and quality of school meals" in Hanoi, co-organized by the Economic and Urban Newspaper.

Regarding propaganda work, the Hanoi Department of Education and Training assessed this as the key step to turn policies and regulations into specific actions in each school. The Department has issued a directive to 100% of educational institutions in the city, requiring serious implementation in accordance with the content of Instruction No. 02. At the same time, plans have been developed to organize conferences and training courses for managers, teachers and catering staff on food safety regulations, criteria for evaluating boarding meals, and one-way kitchen procedures.

In addition, it is necessary to promote propaganda to parents through many forms, including parent meetings, propaganda carefully, correctly, and accurately with the contents directed by the City to ensure food safety for school meals. In addition, there are other effective forms of propaganda, such as: propaganda in school newsletters, social networks, class groups, and at the same time, encourage parents to participate in directly supervising school meals; thereby increasing publicity, transparency as well as trust and peace of mind of parents and the whole society with school meals.

Regarding coordination with communes and wards, the Department of Education and Training has sent a document requesting the Department of Culture and Social Affairs of 126 communes and wards to closely coordinate with functional forces in guiding, inspecting and supervising units organizing meals for boarding students at schools in the area; coordinate with schools to strictly control the origin of food, manage food service activities around school gates; and coordinate to promptly handle any reports of food safety risks.

A nutritious, energy-balanced meal helps improve students' health, physical and mental health.

It can be said that the propaganda work has helped raise awareness among cadres, teachers, employees and parents, and the coordination with communes and wards has increased the effectiveness of inspection and supervision from the grassroots level. These are two important factors for the implementation of Instruction No. 02/BCĐ-HD to be more practical and systematic, ensuring that boarding meals at schools in the capital meet the criteria of "safety - science - nutrition - transparency".

- Regarding the Hanoi Department of Education and Training, how is the coordination between schools, parents and authorities in the supervision of school meals currently being implemented , madam ?

- Ensuring food safety in school meals is always a task that the Department of Education and Training pays special attention to, because this is a factor that directly affects the health and development of students in the capital. To ensure food safety in school meals, the coordination of schools, parents, and authorities is an important key.

On the school side, boarding schools have established strict meal management processes, from selecting food suppliers, signing service contracts to supervising the preparation, processing, and distribution stages. Many schools have implemented a one-way kitchen model, strictly complying with food safety laws.

Food safety in school meals is an issue of particular concern to society.

For parents, the Department of Education and Training has directed schools to establish a Boarding Meal Monitoring Team with the direct participation of parents. Every day, representatives of parents are allowed to join the working group to monitor food input and processing, and some schools invite parents to join the meal with students. This companionship has created openness, transparency, trust and peace of mind for parents and the whole society regarding the quality of school meals.

With the authorities, the Department of Education and Training regularly coordinates with the Department of Health, the Department of Food Safety and Hygiene, market management forces, police, local authorities, ward and commune health workers to strengthen periodic and unscheduled inspections, checks and supervision; thereby promptly detecting and handling risks; at the same time increasing objectivity and strictness in supervision work.

Regarding communication and training, the Department of Education and Training pays great attention to communication and training work and believes that this work helps raise awareness among teachers, staff, parents and students and form habits of consuming safe food.

Thanks to the above-mentioned close coordination mechanism, the work of ensuring food safety in school meals in Hanoi has achieved many positive results, contributing to creating a safe and friendly learning environment and enhancing the trust of society in the capital's education sector.

Thank you very much!

Source: https://sogd.hanoi.gov.vn/tin-tuc-su-kien/ho-tro-bua-an-ban-tru-nang-cao-tam-voc-tri-tue-cho-hoc-sinh-thu-do/ct/525/16481