​Now, many schools in the province have canteen kitchens and canteen for their students. Also, the health sector regularly offers training and inspects food safety conditions in schools’ canteen kitchens to ensure students’ health. However, due to the current shortage of human resources the health sector’s units can only conduct inspection at and give instructions to the canteen kitchens and canteens in schools once a year at least. In addition, food poisoning is showing increasing signs and food safety is becoming a community’s great concern, especially the failure to control food poisoning occurring among students at schools. Therefore, to ensure food safety and prevent food poisoning in canteen kitchens and schools’ canteens, Department of Health and Department of Education and Training are supposed to coordinate to introduce the food safety self-inspection system in the province’s canteen kitchens and schools’ canteens.

Also, Department of Food Safety and Hygiene, and the medical centers of districts, Long Khanh town and Bien Hoa city regularly monitor and give guidance to the schools with canteen kitchens and canteens to help them guarantee food safety.

The education and training sector and the health sector have put forward solutions for building and introducing a food safety self-inspection system in the schools with canteen kitchens in the province to prevent and minimize mass food poisoning. Accordingly, the self-inspection system will be gradually expanded. First of all, kindergartens, and primary and secondary schools with canteen kitchens and canteens; Education and Training Divisions of districts, Long Khanh town and Bien Hoa city; Department of Education and Training; and so on will get trained on how to introduce the food safety and hygiene self-inspection system. As planned, as of December 1 schools will begin to apply self-inspection procedures and offer guidance on how to assess food hygiene and safety conditions, make self-inspection minutes and grassroots levels’ reports, and so on.

Also, Department of Food Safety and Hygiene will be a focal point to offer guidance and training on how to use the self-inspection system and host training sessions for the managers from all levels of schools in the province.

The recent food safety inspections that having been conducted at school and units in the province indicated that most schools had complied with the regulations on how to guarantee food safety. However, there are still some schools that have not been able to present their receipts of food origins and that have not periodically tested their water sources; many other schools do not have places for pre-processing foods and input materials due to their narrow space; and so on.

Many schools’ leadership has not conducted regular and periodical inspections at the facilities catering foods and meals for schools’ canteen kitchens. Besides, there are still many a street food vendors at schools’ gates that selling foods of unknown origins.

Duy Minh (Dieu Linh)