Applying the Nutrition-balanced Menu Development Software helps primary boarding schools plan and manage meals effectively.

 

 

 

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Anh - Deputy Director of Ha Tinh Department of Education and Training was sharing the plan to implement the project in the province in the upcoming time.

200 primary boarding schools and boarding-schools-to-be of the schoolyear 2018 - 2019 in Ha Tinh participated in the conference on deploying the Nutrition-balanced Menu Development Software taking place on the morning of March 31st. The conference was organized by Ha Tinh Department of Education and Training in cooperation with Ajinomoto Vietnam to help schools implementing the software effectively.
The conference welcomed representatives of the Ministry of Education and Training, Ajinomoto Vietnam's leaders, leaders of Ha Tinh Department of Education and Training, leaders and executives of Divisions of Education and Training, the school management boards and staff in charge of the boarding management.

According to Ajinomoto Vietnam’s representatives, the opposite physical health between rural and urban children is one of the nutritional concerns in Viet Nam. Malnutrition, especially marasmus, is prevalent in rural children, while overweightness and obesity are increasing in both adults and children in urban area, particularly in big cities.

Improving children’s nutritional state through rational school meals is one of the key points of the National Nutrition Strategy and the Master Plan for physical health and stature development of Vietnamese people in the period of 2011-2030. However, primary boarding schools still encounter many difficulties in organizing school meals due to the limitation in nutritional knowledge and experience to build menus that both meet the nutritional requirements and fit the monthly expense.

 

Understanding the reality and current difficulties of schools, Ajinomoto Vietnam studied and initiated the School Meal Project in 2012, then started deploying the project in collaboration with the National Institute of Nutrition – The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education – Training. The project’s goals are to contribute to education, nurture and train the country’s future generations through nutrition and health improving activities, hence helping to improve the stature and intelligence for primary pupils.

The Nutrition-balanced Menu Development Software is part of the School Meal Project, helping to provide and develop nutrition-balanced, diverse, delicious menus and support the boarding meal management. The software is provided totally free on the project’s website: www.buaanhocduong.com.vn. Each primary boarding school registers for an account to have full access to the software’s functions.

 

According to Ajinomoto Vietnam’s representatives, the software’s menus were developed in over a year through many processes of surveys, analyses, formula formation, experiment and careful adjustment. After that, the menus were approved by the Appraisal Council of the National Institute of Nutrition - the Ministry of Health and the Evaluation Council of the Ministry of Education - Training. The software offers boarding schools a diverse menu bank of 120 available menus with 360 different dishes for lunch which are nutrition-balanced based on the needs of certain ages. Besides being nutrition-balanced, the dishes are also diverse, delicious and divided into 3 groups in accordance with 3 areas of Vietnam: the North, the Central and the South.

The software has many outstanding features, which help schools to create new menus by combining available dishes in the menu bank or by using local materials in each area, and calculate, manage the expense of pupils’ meals.

 

Apart from the Nutrition-balanced Menu Development Software, the School Meal Project is also deployed to schools with the poster of “Three Minutes to Change Awareness”, making it easy for pupils to approach nutritional knowledge. Under the framework of the project, the model of one way boarding kitchen was also sponsored by Ajinomoto Vietnam and put into operation at Trung Trac Primary School, Ho Chi Minh City. Moreover, the Government of Japan has signed the Sponsorship Agreement for the second standard boarding kitchen in Lang Son.

Till February, 2,801 primary boarding schools nationwide have been implementing the Nutrition-balanced Menu Development Software in organizing school meals.