A student's tray of rice does not only have food, including children's health and the trust that families place in the school.
Therefore, it is necessary to publicly announce the supplier, ingredients, food images, import invoices, menus and actual tray images of students every day.
The more meals are directly related to children's health, the less there is reason to lack transparency.
For a long time, many places have had ambiguous information about where food comes from, who provides it, what the invoice value is, whether the ingredients are as committed or not, whether the actual tray is in line with the menu or not...
Now, that information is required to be delivered to parents daily through news boards, websites, technology applications or online contact groups.
This is a way to transparentize an activity that uses money and is directly related to students' health.
Food suppliers do business seriously, there is nothing to be afraid of when publicly disclosing the source of goods.
The school organizes semi-boarding in accordance with procedures and there is no reason to be hesitant in the face of parent supervision.
Conversely, the more public it is, the more reputable and competitive those who do honest business have an additional layer of protection.
Recent feedback on the quality of meals at some schools shows that we cannot just rely on inspection after incidents occur.
With food, especially children's meals, prevention must precede treatment.
The school also cannot bear all the responsibility alone if there are thousands of meals per day, a mechanism that the school, the supplier and parents jointly supervise will create more control classes.
It is also necessary to clarify that public disclosure does not mean turning parents into a force to "detect mistakes" of schools every day.
Supervision must be in the spirit of coordination, with procedures, responsibility and professional respect.
But one indispensable thing is the right to know.
Publicly announce the menu to know what the child is eating, publicly announce the invoice to know where the food is imported from, publicly announce the image of the tray to know if the actual meal is consistent with what has been committed.
Publicize the supplier unit to know who is responsible.
And, let's look at it publicly in a positive direction.
Doing business honestly is not afraid of publicity, doing it according to procedures is not afraid of supervision. The more transparent, the more trust can be built.
Boarding meals are a part of the school life of millions of children. Therefore, don't wait until an incident occurs to ask where the food comes from, who provides it, where the bills are, and what the procedures are.
Let's be public from the beginning.
