Seoul Kindergarten Meals Managed Like Schools... Cho Hee-yeon "Need to Expand Free Meals"

Application of School Meal Act from This Year... Announcement of 'Safe Meal Comprehensive Plan'
Private Kindergartens with 200 or More Students Must Assign One Nutrition Teacher
Support for Purchase Costs of Large Refrigerators for Private Kindergartens
Proposal to Expand Free Meals to Kindergartens in Seoul City

[Asia Economy Reporter Han Jinju] The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has established detailed standards for the operation of kindergarten meals, which are now included in the school meal program starting this year. Along with this, it proposed to the Seoul city government the need to reduce the burden on kindergarten parents and to expand free meals to kindergartens.

On the 16th, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education announced the "Kindergarten Safe Meal Comprehensive Plan" to support the operation of kindergarten meals.

With the revision of the School Meal Act, kindergartens have been subject to the School Meal Act since January 30. The targets are all national and public daycare centers and private kindergartens with 100 or more students. Kindergarten meals have been operated under the responsibility of kindergarten principals, but compared to schools, facilities are small-scale and nutrition, hygiene, and manpower are insufficient. In June last year, an incident occurred where about 110 people, including students, were infected with mass food poisoning at a private kindergarten in Ansan.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education plans to focus on raising the level of kindergarten meals by selecting six key tasks. The six tasks are ▲expansion of meal cooking machines and equipment ▲support of professional personnel for safe meals ▲operation of a child nutrition management support system ▲establishment of a hygiene and safety management system for kindergarten meals ▲establishment of a cooperative system for small-scale kindergarten meal management ▲safe ingredient purchasing management.

Cho Hee-yeon, Superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, said, "It has been 10 years since free meals were first introduced in Seoul, and now school meals have become a major pillar of universal welfare that parents trust and feel safe with," adding, "I propose that the newly elected mayor of Seoul select free kindergarten meals as a top priority agenda and promptly establish a framework for consultation with the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education."

Expansion of Meal Cooking Equipment... Establishment of Nutrition and Hygiene Management Systems

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has formed a 'Safe Meal Support Team' composed of nutrition teachers and experts to provide consulting and mentoring. It also provides food poisoning prevention and nutrition management education for kindergarten principals and meal-related personnel. For 265 private kindergartens with fewer than 100 students, which are not subject to the School Meal Act, separate guidelines will help with hygiene management and provide standardized menus and nutrition information. Private kindergartens with fewer than 100 students will be required to register with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's 'Children's Meal Management Support Center' by the end of the year to manage hygiene.

Support will also be provided for the purchase of essential cooking and serving equipment such as large refrigerators for private kindergartens. Since preserved food must be stored for 144 hours, the plan is to support up to 5 million KRW per institution to equip large refrigerators. Education officer Kwon Soon-joo said, "Many kindergartens have general household refrigerators, but large refrigerators are necessary for hygienic ingredient management," adding, "Essential cooking equipment will be made mandatory, and other products will receive differential support." Additionally, single and attached kindergartens will receive funds to purchase transport equipment for classroom serving and serving equipment to maintain appropriate meal temperatures.

According to the revised enforcement decree of the School Meal Act, kindergartens with 100 or more students must have one nutrition teacher each, and kindergartens with 100 to fewer than 200 students (within the same education office jurisdiction) may share one nutrition teacher between two kindergartens. Private kindergartens require 260 nutrition teachers. Public kindergartens must assign one cook per kindergarten, and a concurrent duty allowance of 600,000 KRW per year can be paid to meal staff in joint cooking kindergartens.

Hygiene management standards for meal workers have also been established. Nutrition teachers, cooking staff, delivery personnel from suppliers, and meal helpers who handle food must undergo health checkups every six months. Their health status must be checked daily before work, and anyone showing symptoms suspected of food poisoning must be excluded from cooking or serving duties.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education will also calculate appropriate meal prices to ensure meal quality. They plan to prepare meal prices through research projects and establish execution standards to prevent misuse. Additionally, they will provide standard menus for children and establish regulations for ingredient purchasing management.

Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education: "Expansion of Free Meals to Kindergartens is Necessary"

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education holds the position that free meals should be expanded to kindergartens in the long term and managed systematically. The estimated cost of free meals is about 83.4 billion KRW, and considering equipment purchase costs, it is expected to reach 100 billion KRW. The office explained that if free meals are introduced in the future, it will be possible to support labor costs for assigning nutrition teachers to private kindergartens. The annual labor cost for nutritionists and cooking staff is estimated at 8.2 billion KRW.

Baek Jeong-heum, Director of the Lifelong Career Education Bureau at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, said, "Currently, 80,000 KRW provided to public kindergartens through the Nuri Curriculum is used for meal costs, but 260,000 KRW provided to private kindergartens is used for educational activity program costs, so parents bear the meal costs," adding, "For public meals to be implemented in kindergartens, many improvements are needed, including an eco-friendly ingredient procurement system, a safe cooking system, and treatment of cooking staff, and public funding is necessary."

Director Baek said, "Considering the financial situation of local governments, we hope to keep all possibilities open, including phased implementation plans, and form a task force to jointly prepare measures related to free meals."