Ensuring the safety of food and water served to school children will now come under the larger responsibilities of teachers and school nurses as authorities will assign them to supervise hygiene requirements and food safety in school canteens.

When the schools reopen in September, there will also be a new system for monitoring and reporting food-borne illnesses among students. These new steps are part of the ongoing, comprehensive programmes by the Dubai government to improve the nutrition and safety of food consumed by students and to cut childhood obesity.

The Dubai Municipality’s Food Control Department in cooperation with the Ministry of Education (MoE) has started conducting tailor-made training for selected teachers and nurses of the government schools in the emirate.

Khalid Sherif Mohammed Al Awadhi, director of the department, said that the civic body hopes that this programme will positively contribute to qualify a group of health supervisors concerned with food safety of school canteens. “It would also support food poison monitoring system in schools in addition to creating awareness on the common malpractices in preparing the food and corrective actions in cooperation with the food inspectors of the Dubai Municipality.”

The municipality’s senior food safety expert Bashir Hassan Yousif told Khaleej Times that the initiative will complement the civic body’s PIC (Person-In-Charge) programme, which makes it mandatory to have a trained and certified food safety manager at all outlets to oversee all levels of preparation and distribution.

“Establishments supplying food to school canteens will have PICs. But we want school authorities to supervise even those people and double-check that school canteens are following the food safety standards and guidelines.”

Principal Awareness Officer in the department Shamsa Gareeb Sulaiman said nearly 200 representatives from 80 government schools are being trained from June 25 to July 3. She said the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) has formed a 10-member team that will also receive training to implement the regulations in private schools.

“These people who are trained by the municipality experts will go back to the schools and train other teachers and staff.”

The training programme, which continues in September, will cover safe food production, supply and storage. It will also teach the importance of labelling as well as the use of additives, prohibited ingredients and banned food items. Trainees will also be given checklists to ensure that they follow the correct procedures depending on the type of canteen services in their schools. For example, the checklist would be different for a canteen that cooks food apposed to a canteen that serves ready-to-eat items, said Yousif. Yousif also stressed the importance of maintaining clean water supplies.

“It is important that schools also take measures to ensure drinking water supplied to children, especially through coolers, are safe. They must ensure that the water tanks, pipelines and taps are clean and periodically disinfected. They should approach the authorised companies for that,” he said.

Poisoning report forms

Food studies and planning specialist Safwan Saifuddin Al Tikarli said if there is one or more suspected case of food-borne illness, school staff should look for food poisoning symptoms among students. If there is any, they must immediately direct the case to a doctor with the poisoning case report form and inform the Food Control Department.

While the food health officers will ensure corrective actions through the PIC, it is the responsibility of the in-charge person at the school to follow up the application of the corrective actions with the officer responsible in the school.

The new case report form for food-borne diseases requires the documentation of several details related to the sick child, including illness information, meal history for three days and list of persons who ate the suspected meal. It should also later record if it was a suspected or confirmed food poisoning after the final diagnosis from the doctor, if available.

sajila@khaleejtimes.com