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Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Education dep't warns public v. food poisoning
By Ryan B. Lachica
THE Department of Education (DepEd) has passed a new order to protect students from possible food poisoning as they return to school this year.
The DepEd Order Number 17 Series of 2005 aims at protecting the students and to train them to be careful of what they eat and drink, particularly street-foods.
Earlier this year there have been several reported food poisoning. The most controversial was the one in Bohol where several children were poisoned by a cassava preparation that was later discovered laced with a rat poison.
The rationale of the order, it said, is to prevent and protect the students for possible food poisoning through improper preparation of food.
The program will be school-operated or teachers' cooperative-and-student-assisted that seeks to confirm that the menus served in food stalls or cafeterias are nutritious and properly processed by the teachers or the authorized "cooks".
It will also be included in the laboratory or in the Home Economics (HE) subject.
Apart from food safety, students will also be taught entrepreneurship, as they will assist in the production, selling and auditing the profit of whatever they will sell.
The profit will be designated to various assistance programs of the school. For example, 35 percent will go to the feeding program where undernourished students will be subject to this program. The other profit will go to the clinic and the improvement of the school's laboratory.
HE teachers will be allocated three hours to supervise the program.
Nilda Monge, principal of the Negros Occidental High School (NOHS) said they would be implementing the DepEd order by end of June or first week of July.
She said that students are advised to purchase their meals from personnel who met the standards of the DepEd order.
Monge, however, is also considering the situation of food stall owners so as to protect their only means of livelihood. But she has no choice, as it is the order of the higher office.
It is better for students not to go out of the school premises to buy their food for their own safety, Monge added.
(June 7, 2005 issue)
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