At Trung Gia B Primary School (Trung Gia commune, Hanoi), parents reflected that the 40,000 VND semi-boarding meal had a meager portion, a small amount of food and asked questions about the quantity and quality of food. Immediately after the reflection, the Hanoi People's Committee requested the Trung Gia Commune People's Committee to urgently inspect and verify.
According to reports, each semi-boarding meal costs 40,000 VND, of which the city budget supports 28,000 VND, and parents contribute 12,000 VND. With a meal using both budget funds and parents' contributions, the point to be clarified is not to look at a plate of rice and then estimate "worth 40,000 VND or not".
The question is how those 40,000 VND are used, how much is for food, the quantity of each dish, the price of ingredients, whether the supplier fulfills its commitments on quantity, quality and nutritional content? These are the bases to assess whether a meal is commensurate with the amount of money paid or not. These questions cannot be answered by perception, but need to be verified by the menu, quantity, invoices, price of ingredients and the actual quality of the meal.
A meal that makes parents have to ask questions requires the school itself and the supplier to have the responsibility to explain transparently. Boarding meals are special in that the beneficiaries are children. Children cannot choose suppliers themselves, check quantity or supervise food quality. That responsibility belongs to the school, the supplier and the management agency.
If the meal is sufficient in quantity, nutrition and food safety, these figures need to be made public so that parents can verify. If the reality is not consistent with the menu, lacks quantity or the quality is not guaranteed, responsibility must be clarified.
The incident at Trung Gia B Elementary School shows that the supervision of semi-boarding meals cannot only take place after the meal has been put on the table. It is necessary to control from the stage of selecting suppliers, building menus, selecting ingredients, quantifying, processing, transporting to when students receive and use meals. Especially, for schools with hundreds, thousands of students eating semi-boarding meals, supervision cannot only rely on unexpected inspections.
A regular, substantive monitoring mechanism is needed, with the participation of schools and parents' representatives; and at the same time, there must be a way to check the quantity, quality and origin of food. What parents need first of all is transparency.
