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Amidst alarming reports of expired meat and unsanitary kitchens in schools, along with instances of corruption involving school officials and food suppliers, China has implemented a new system to enable real-time public monitoring of the meal preparation process.
While there is an expectation that school meals should be nutritious, safe, and hygienic, ongoing reports of food poisoning incidents have raised significant concerns regarding food safety in schools.
For instance, multiple students at Changfeng Middle School in Kunming, Yunnan, experienced diarrhea last October after consuming substandard pork slices served in the canteen.
The incident sparked public outrage when parents found a large amount of stale and spoiled meat in the kitchen, leading to the dismissal of the principal and a fine of six million yuan imposed on the cafeteria contractor.
In addition to concerns regarding food safety, recent revelations have uncovered instances of corrupt practices involving officials and educational leaders, with reports indicating that at least ten officials are under investigation for corruption linked to school meal contracts.
Due to inadequate monitoring mechanisms for school meals, scholars said the officials exploit regulatory loopholes for personal gain, thus perpetuating a continuing cycle of corruption.
The school canteen system on the mainland is currently classified into two categories: self-operated and outsourced.
Self-operated canteens often experience corruption related to financial management, particularly in the procurement of food ingredients, which is handled by a limited number of administrators and lacks adequate oversight.
A principal has disclosed that corruption frequently arises when school principals and responsible personnel select suppliers by comparing prices with market wholesalers.
For instance, a middle school located in Linfen, Shanxi, discovered significant discrepancies between the quantity of food received and the records listed on invoices last June.
The principal had appointed his brother as the exclusive food supplier, submitted falsified records, and embezzled approximately 1.61 million yuan over a period of three years.
Similarly, another school in Guang'an, Sichuan, engaged in collusion with a food supplier to provide substandard ingredients, wherein expensive rice was replaced with cheaper, stale rice, and vegetables were substituted for meat, resulting in the unlawful diversion of over 1.8 million yuan from the nutritional meal program.
Meanwhile, various corrupt practices also emerged in outsourced cafeterias, such as securing contracts through bribery and then ignoring food quality and safety to cut costs, endangering student health.
To address student food safety, a nationwide reform of school canteens began on April 15, introducing three new laws that received widespread support from the community.
First of all, principals are now fully responsible for the food safety in school canteens, who will be held accountable if any incidents occur, effectively motivating them to regularly check kitchens for hygiene and nutritional standards when their job is at stake.
Scholars believe this initiative increases pressure on school administrations, which have previously prioritized teaching over cafeteria management.
Furthermore, canteen contractors and schools are now required to add a clause in their contract to ensure food safety, allowing schools to terminate contractors and impose penalties if the contractors use spoiled ingredients.
Offending companies will also be blacklisted and barred from offering services to the education system.
Meanwhile, kindergartens with over 300 students and schools with over 500 students are mandated to assign a food safety supervisor from the school management team, who must complete weekly training and examinations and be replaced if they fail.
To combat the remaining risk of corruption due to a lack of transparency in food procurement, a computer platform for selecting food suppliers has been introduced.
Schools can input their meal plans for the upcoming month into a system that integrates data to generate demand for all canteens.
The education ministry will match suppliers with schools, offering about twenty options, with the school canteen administrator only knowing their chosen supplier after the bidding process.
Real-time monitoring system
Additionally, some schools have implemented a new real-time monitoring system for parents and appropriate authorities, exhibiting meal preparation from food purchases to kitchen cleaning.
Through installing cameras to monitor ingredient inspections, displaying real-time inventory status, along with an AI system that alerts staff to pest infestations, these measures aim to rebuild trust in school meals among parents, students, and the community.
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