Excellence Award in School Meal Best Practices Contest Hosted by Ministry of Education
Grand Prize in Early Childhood Nutrition and Dietary Education Materials Contest
Busan Metropolitan Office of Education has achieved remarkable success by having its policies implemented last year to provide healthy school meals and create a proper dietary education environment selected as exemplary cases in various competitions hosted by the Ministry of Education.
The city education office (Superintendent Ha Yun-su) won the Excellence Award in the ‘2023 School Meal Best Practices Contest’ conducted by the Ministry of Education last year, and the Grand Prize in the ‘Early Childhood Nutrition and Dietary Education Materials Contest’.
The ‘2023 School Meal Best Practices Contest,’ held for one month starting in October last year, aimed to discover and share excellent school meal cases from the field and was open to metropolitan and provincial offices of education (support offices), schools, and kindergartens nationwide.
Busan Metropolitan Office of Education received the Excellence Award in the education (support office) category for the case titled ‘Thoroughly Inspecting and Precisely Supporting Early Childhood Nutrition! School Meals in Small-Scale Private Kindergartens.’ It was highly evaluated for its contribution to the stable establishment of school meals in small-scale private kindergartens through customized meal consulting and management support.
Since October 2022, the city education office has assigned one dedicated itinerant nutrition teacher to each of the five education support offices to manage and support school meals in small-scale private kindergartens. These teachers assist with monthly menu planning, nutrition management, hygiene and safety management and consulting, dietary guidance and nutrition counseling, and parent education, receiving great positive feedback from the field.
The awarded best practices will be shared and utilized during training sessions for school meal stakeholders through the publication of a booklet and uploading on websites including the Student Health Information Center.
The ‘Early Childhood Nutrition and Dietary Education Materials Contest’ was held for the first time last October to discover and disseminate nutrition and dietary education materials linked to the Nuri Curriculum to activate dietary education.
In this contest, Baek Jeom-hee, a teacher at the Northern Education Support Office and an itinerant nutrition teacher, won the institution’s only Grand Prize with the ‘Nutrition and Dietary Education Package Including Learning About Vegetables Growing in the Garden,’ and Choi Hye-jin, an itinerant nutrition teacher at Dongnae Education Support Office, received an individual Encouragement Award for ‘Rice! Who Are You?’
Their excellent cases of nutrition education in small-scale private kindergartens will be included in the early childhood nutrition and dietary education materials booklet published by the Ministry of Education and will also be uploaded on the website.
Gwak Jeong-rok, Director of Character, Physical Education, and School Meals at the city education office, said, “This selection as an exemplary case is an achievement that recognizes the excellence of our education office’s school meal policies by many people,” and added, “We will continue to strive to provide students with healthy and safe meals.”
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