THE SCHOOL CANTEEN

The school bell heralding the start of the new school year has sounded, the first lessons are over and the pupils, not used to being hungry, dash to the canteen. But what can they expect to find? 

Aybaniz Karimova is the mother of a first-grade pupil who is studying at a vocational school in Baku's Nizami District. She says that even before her child joined the school she heard stories about chocolate bars, chips, fizzy drinks, corn sticks and other "childish delights" that are being sold in school canteens. "But a few days before the start of the school year we had a parents' meeting," Aybaniz says, "where the teacher warned us that we must ourselves provide our child with food and drink because, never mind that the food being sold in the school canteens was not very suitable for children, it could even be past its sell-by date. According to the teacher, first-grade children are too small to work out the sell-by date for themselves." It is the same story with the after-school groups, to which you also have to bring your own food.

In schools situated closer to the city centre, the elite vocational schools, secondary schools and private schools the situation is, of course, better than in the peripheral establishments. For example, Aliya, the mother of a 10-year old pupil of educational park 132-134, says that, together with the traditional "Snickers" and salty breadsticks there are also fruit juices and fresh rolls available. Because there is also a play school and a full-fledged after-school club here, you could say the school is fortunate: having a general kitchen means the school canteen can be supplied with a fairly varied range of food compared with other schools: chips, salad, tea and cocoa. You have to pay for it, but the cost is quite reasonable.

A satisfactory legal base

Anyway, it is high time such a regime was introduced at all schools. In August of this year the State Committee for Standards, Patents and Metrology established a state standard under the number AZS 747-2013 on pupils' food at educational establishments. According to this standard, a number of food products are banned at schools and other educational establishments and fostering institutions. This list includes out-of-date produce, meat that has not passed the appropriate inspection by veterinary bodies, stale dinners, preserves that are not hermetically sealed, and much else besides. Also on the list are fizzy drinks, spices, condiments, pies, doughnuts and fritters - the favourite range of the local fast-food outlet. As R+ was told by the head of the Azerbaijani State Service for the Monitoring of Technical Regulation and Standardization of the State Committee for Standardization, Metrology and Patents, Abulfat Imanov, this standard has been drawn up after taking into account international standards. It also indicates the optimum standards for food products in play schools and schools, the aim of which is to improve the health of the pupils. It should be noted that this standard is the main regulatory document in the system of pre-school and school catering and it must be followed to the letter.

Furthermore, according to Abulfat Imanov, enterprises that deal in the delivery of foods and semi-manufactured products to educational establishments will be strictly checked, and some hot dishes and semi-manufactured products that had been delivered in the past are being banned.

But in practice?

If you come across shortcomings in the work of school canteens and buffets you can approach the Standardization Committee or its regional branches. School checks should be carried out once a year, but if a complaint is made then a second check may be carried out.

At the same time, as always, even with a relevant legal base in place, a number of questions arise: who is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the law, what penalties are there for violators and, most importantly, who will correct these shortcomings?

The head of the catering department of the Republican Centre for Hygiene and Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health, Imran Abdullayev, notes that the organization of catering in schools has been passed to the OJSC "School and Student Catering", which believes its commitment is merely to provide schools with food products. But any food sold in schools must be of good quality and the schools themselves should follow this up.

Meanwhile, the Republican Centre for Hygiene and Epidemiology carried out checks in schools every year, the aim of which is to expose violations of health-and-safety regulations in the storage of food products, their quality and the school menu. However, proper monitoring of school buffets, the head of the centre's health department Ziyaddin Kazimov tells R+, will become possible only after introducing a unified register system. But even then, the expert points out, this does not mean a medical officer will be standing by the door of every school canteen.

According to the head of the sector for liaison with the public of the Main Education Directorate in Baku, Zamina Aligizi, control over school buffets is in the hands of the "Parents and Teachers Association" scientific-production organization. Meanwhile, the association's director, Tarana Sarifova, claims that in fact they have no special responsibility or powers of control over questions of school catering. She says that this organization is merely a non-governmental one and does not even have its own laboratory to monitor the quality of the food. "All over the world children eat chips, fizzy drinks and snacks of all kinds; even if you ban them in school canteens they will still buy them in the local shops," Tarana believes.

All this is true, but it would be good to remember that school is not just a place of education but also a place of breeding and nurturing, and to leave unattended such an important question of child catering on the basis that children will still yield to temptation is impermissible.

But it would be good…

Zemfira Mahmudova went to school in Soviet times. According to her, a card system existed back then: the parent bought a ticket for a child which entitled him or her to a set meal in the canteen. True, as Zemfira recalls, there were also shortcomings here specifically that the ticket had to be got by pulling strings, and not everyone was able to do this.

As we know from experience, there is no unified standard of school catering in the world. In Brazil, for example, school catering is a complex system designed not just to feed the children but also to boost small farms in the region. For example, food suppliers think not just about their own pockets, but also the health of their own children for whom these food products are being supplied. A special commission of seven people is set up to monitor the quality of the food and all violations are investigated by the federal government.

In Germany, on the other hand, there are virtually no full-fledged canteens, and those that do exist operate on a commercial basis. Meanwhile, any food that reaches pre-school and school establishments must undergo compulsory certification.

Here, it is the schools themselves who are responsible for what is on the school buffet counter. And at the moment all questions of the health of schoolchildren remain on the conscience of their management.