Children’s Representative from Ermera district Ivonia Martins denounced the School Feeding Program being run by the Ministry of Education to provide basic nutrition to school children as unhygienic because kitchens used for food preparation and serving are in poor condition.
She said kitchen are filled with food covered with flied which poses a health threat to the children.
“I believe the school feeding program is not hygienic. We see plates and spoons left all over the place that are then used and re-used to serve food to the children,” said Martins during a discussion with members of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Solidarity in Vila-Verde, Dili, in late 2014.
She said the Ministry of Education should do better to create conditions that are adequate for the cooks to prepare the food and maintain hygiene standards for food preparation and handling so the children don’t get food poisoning.
Program Manager for the Timor-Leste Coalition for Education (TLCE) Matias dos Santos urged the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health to provide training in hygiene and food preparation and handling.
Dos Santos added that the school feeding program needs to be adequately managed to ensure better control over food handling and preparation and so children receive proper nutrition from the food they eat provided by the schools.
“They must provide a standard for cooking for the cooks to prepare food that is hygienic for the children because sometimes we observed in some schools cooks preparing food and smoking at the same time.”
Vice Minister for Basic Education Dulce de Jesus Soares said her ministry has already provided training to cooks and suppliers on healthy food preparation and hygienic food handling for children but that additional training is required.
“We will continue to provide training for the cooks as well as for the food suppliers to ensure the food prepared and served is hygienic and healthy,” said the Vice Minister.
