VietNamNet Bridge – The parents who have children going to Maple Bear nursery school, have got shocked after discovering that their children have to eat dirty food every day, even though they have to pay the sky high tuitions of 50 million dong per quarter.

Education experts provide dirty food

The international nursery school signed a contract with Com Viet (Vietnamese Rice) Catering Company on providing meals to the school’s students. The unit price is 11,000 dong for breakfast, 22,000 dong for lunch and 11,000 dong for mid-afternoon meals.

The high prices for the meals have made the parents feel secure about the quality of the food they children can enjoy at the school. And they really have got shocked when discovering that the food provided at the school by Com Viet is terribly dirty.

One of the parents, who once visited Com Viet, said that she saw the cooking utensils here stained and rusty, the towel used to dry dishes was being hung on a very dirty area. Besides, a meat grinder was put on the ground, and it was grimy.

“The freezer did not work. I could see a plastic bag with wet steal meat, and soft vegetables,” she added.

M, who has two children going to the school, said that the school signed the catering contract with Com Viet in December 2010, which means that children have been eating dirty food for the last 1.5 years.

After discovering the terrible thing, parents asked the school’s board of management to show the address of Com Viet, so that they can come to see with their eyes the material facilities of the catering company.

At first, the school’s board of management refused the proposal, but it then made a compromise. And what the parents saw at Com Viet made them feel dizzy.

Pham Ngoc Lan, a parent, said at the meeting between the school’s management board and parents held on May 21 that after discovering that her child ate stale food, she brought the child to medical center, where she was told by the physicians that the child had a problem in stomach, caused by the daily food.

Hearing the news from Lan, a lot of other parents have rushed to bring their children to medical centers to have examination.

A parent with the nickname Ngoc Ngoc wrote on an education forum that she feels discouraged about the way the school’s management board deals with the problem.

“They denied the responsibility in this problem. They say they are just education experts, not catering experts,” she wrote. “If they are not catering experts, why do they dare to provide food services as well?”

“The rich also cry”

Toommi, a parent, wrote on the same education forum that she once felt secure when sending her child to the school. “I think that when you pay high, you would get good services. However,…”

What to do next? This really is a big problem for the parents. Some parents have affirmed that they would send their children to other schools, because they have lost confidence in the school.

Meanwhile, other parents have asked the school to pay money for their children’s health examination. However, a lot of parents say they do not need the compensation by the school, even though they could get billions of dong, because their children’s health is the most important thing for them.

There are also the parents, who have not made any decisions yet. They said they still need to listen to the news before making decision. In fact, they do not want to bring the children to other schools, because the children would have to spend time to get adapted to the new schooling environment. Besides, they are not sure the new schools would be good enough for their children.

Source: VTC