See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/311951384

Assessment of Food Safety Practice against the School Canteen Management

Guidelines in Public Schools

Conference Paper · October 2015

CITATIONS READS

0 6,262

4 authors, including:

Rafidah AIDA Ramli Azila Azmi

Universiti Teknologi MARA Universiti Teknologi Mara (Pulau Pinang)
3 PUBLICATIONS   8 CITATIONS    34 PUBLICATIONS   46 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Hospitality Information Technology and e-Commerce View project

Shopping Tourism View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Azila Azmi on 29 December 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 PROCEEDINGS
&
ABSTRACTS BOOK

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
THE FUTURE OF ASEAN

th th
27 - 28 OCTOBER 2015

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ON THE FUTURE OF ASEAN
(ICoFA) 2015

Integration & Sustainability of ASEAN

Organized by:

Universiti Teknologi MARA

Perlis Branch, Arau Campus

 Assessment of Food Safety Practice against the School Canteen Management
Guidelines in Public Schools
Nadia Liana Mohd Karim*
Faculty of Hotel & Tourism Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pulau Pinang, 13500
Permatang Pauh, Pulau Pinang
Tel: + 604-382 3673 E-mail: [email protected]

Dr. Rafidah Aida Ramli

Faculty of Hotel & Tourism Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pulau Pinang, 13500
Permatang Pauh, Pulau Pinang
Tel: + 604-382 3664 E-mail: [email protected]

Dr Azila Azmi
Faculty of Hotel & Tourism Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pulau Pinang, 13500
Permatang Pauh, Pulau Pinang
Tel: + 604-382 3640 E-mail: [email protected]

Arnieyantie Abdul Hadi

Faculty of Hotel & Tourism Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Pulau Pinang, 13500
Permatang Pauh, Pulau Pinang
Tel: + 604-382 3673 E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract
This study was conducted to assess the compliance of School Canteen Management Guidelines among
public school food handlers. School Canteen Management Guidelines is a booklet provided by the School Division
of Ministry of Education to every school throughout the nation. The objective of this study was to find out whether
the food handlers comprehended and consequently practiced the guidelines accordingly or the other way round. The
study involved 161 respondents from two districts across the nation. Data was collected from 19 school canteens.
Instruments include self-report questionnaire for the respondents and paired with observation list filled by the
researcher. Majority of the respondents replied that they were aware of the guidelines and correspondingly claimed
to comprehend the contents. The observation score indicated that respondents over rated themselves. Respondents
assumed they were highly practicing correct food safety procedure while observation proves otherwise. Based on
the score rating however the practices were found to be moderate and acceptable in regard to the requirement of the
given guidelines. This study has helped to highlight the importance of information enforced and provided by the
ministry to the food operators. Knowledge of food safety can be obtain from a lot of sources however it is integral
for the governing body to administer and encourage in various ways for the school to always comply with food
safety guidelines. It is suggested that the moderate food safety practice was due to the fact that it was positively
affected by the awareness of the guidelines hence attesting the impact of what a guidelines can make.

Keywords: food safety, food safety practice, public school, school canteen guidelines

Introduction
School meals were initially introduced in 1900 as a concern over the children’s health, especially
those in poorer areas where the children were shorter and thinner than those in better areas
(Colquhoun, Lyon & Alexander, 2001).The meal program in British was developed with the aim

1
to provide food during the day for children who come from less fortunate background (Seaman
& Moss, 2006). School meals then were also found to be the most important meal of the day
since the children did not have proper meals before or after the school time (Church, 1997).
However, now the aim of school catering is seen as to facilitate both parents and children
because the needs of family have increased along with the rapid development of the country
whereby both parents are working (Subratty, Chan Sun, &Kassean, 2003).
In accordance to the need and demand for healthy eating habits, school canteens play as
dependable partners in fulfilling the objective by selling healthy foods (Subratty, et. al., 2003).
The escalating number of food poisoning cases has resulted the public and organizations to voice
out their concerns in mass media and demand for solutions to avoid and control the problem.
This is apparently a global worry (De Silva-Sanigorski, Breheny, Jones, Lacy, Kremer, &
Carpenter, 2011). Redmond and Griffith (2005) revealed that the increased incidence of
foodborne disease over the past 20 years has apparently been generating a considerable social
and economic responsibility on society and it remains a major public concern (Breen, Brock,
Crawford, Doherty, Drommond, & Gill, 2006).
As food poisoning has become a major concern of public and authority, this research intends to
investigate the compliance of School Canteen Management Guidelines (SCMG) among food
handlers in public schools. SCMG is a set of guideline provided by the School Division of
Ministry of Education to every public school canteen operators drawn up by a panel of people
from both the education as well as the health ministry.

Methodology
The target population for this research is public primary school canteens from Kota Bharu and
Johor Bahru. Both cities hold vast geographic, politic, and culture differences which influenced
the background of the respondents. These differences are advantageous when we generalize the
findings for the whole of Peninsular Malaysia. The total number of public primary schools in
Malaysia as of January 2012 was 7723. Since the research vicinity is limited to Peninsular
Malaysia, and subjected to only 2 cities the total population for this research is narrowed down to
178 schools. At this stage cluster sampling is applied where the two cities are identified as
subgroups for the population. The states represent two areas: developed and less developed areas
in Malaysia. Even though they are well recognized as the capital cities for each state, it is to be
noted that not all the selected schools are categorized as urban schools. The Ministry classifies
the schools in Malaysia as urban or rural schools. This justifies the choice of sampling as it
provides further generalizability for the whole educational set-up in Malaysia. All the selected
schools are day school, where the students do not stay in hostels. At the end of the study, 161
respondents were assessed from 19 schools.

Data Collection/Analysis
Consent from the Ministry of Education was obtained before the research was conducted. Prior
notice about the visit was not sent out to the schools as the researcher wanted to gauge their
actual daily practice. This is also to avoid any pre-empted situation where the food handlers may
react in a self-conscious manner both pre and during the observation thus negatively influencing
the validity and reliability of the results. Questionnaires were distributed to the food handlers on
duty at the school canteens. Each school was assessed during the period of recess hours in a day.
On top of that, the food handlers also spent some time out of the recess hours to answer the
questionnaires.
Responses obtained from the demographic questionnaire provided background data of the
samples. These data were interpreted using frequencies and percentages. Pie and bar charts were
also used to illustrate the various responses for some of the variables. Percentages were also used
to determine the regularity of food-safety practice. Then non-parametric Wilcoxon signed rank
test was used to compare the self-reported with observed food-safety practice.
2
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
1. Demographic Profile
A total of 161 questionnaires were answered by the samples in both districts. More than half of
them were female comprising (n=111) and the remaining were male. Majority of the food
handlers were aged above 31 (n=95), followed by 26 – 30 years old (n=29), 21 – 25 years old
(n=23) and a minority 15 – 20 years old (n=14). Most of the respondents were high school
graduate (n=101), followed by secondary school leavers or lower (n=55) and only 5 respondents
have tertiary education qualification.
Upon being prompted with questions on the SCMG, 147 respondents replied that they were
aware of the guidelines while the rest of them revealed otherwise. A high majority (n=136) of the
respondents comprehend the guidelines while a friction (n=3) showed that they did not
understand the guidelines and 8 respondents claimed that they did not fully understand the
guidelines which then they sought help from the managers as a way to comprehend it further.
Others chose to ask colleague while some did not take any initiative to understand the content.
Most of the respondents had attended food handlers’ course. On top of that the survey recorded
that food handlers who had not attended any food handling class (n=43) referred to their
managers or colleagues, observed, and read for their source of food handling information.

2. Distinguishing Safe Practices

Basically all respondents disagreed with most of the practices contravene to food safety.
Respondents clearly perceived the acts of spitting everywhere, coughing, sneezing, talking, or
laughing in food direction, scratching or picking body parts, chewing gums or betel , blowing in
food container or wrapper were not acceptable in food handling setting. The same applied to the
practices such as wrapping, lining or covering food using dirty, coloured, or printed material, and
brushing debris onto floors when cleaning table tops.
However, a small number of the respondents showed agreement towards some stated practices
namely item 6, 7 and 9. The minority, 2.5% of the respondents thought it was not wrong to place,
transport or stack plates with food in the plates while 6.2% of the respondents concurred with the
idea of placing cutleries and tongs in pockets’ of aprons and 5% thought it was not a problem to
bring small children into the food preparation area.

3. Food Safety Practice Performance Regularity

Overall, respondents rate themselves high (96.7%) in the level of regularity of performing food
safety practices (Table 1). All 14 practices demonstrated high percentage score (>95%) except
for item number 12 (“Throw dry and wet garbage separately”) where respondents reported
relatively less compliance compared to the other practices.

Table 1 Food Safety Practices Section 2

Mean score (%)
Practice Self-report Observation
1 Appear groomed, clean, and cheerful all the time. 99.53 82.45
2 Wash hands with soap and clean water before preparing 99.07 68.32
or serving foods.
3 Cover prepared foods with suitable and clean cover. 99.38 72.52
4 Use spoon, fork, plastic glove, or tongs while holding 99.38 55.90
cooked foods.

3
 5 Cover nose or mouth with handkerchief when coughing or 98.13 94.10
sneezing while turning their face away from the food.
6 Use clean and different wiping cloths to wipe crockery, 99.53 85.71
tables and hands.
7 Store non-foods item such as pesticides, kerosene, and 98.25 100
cleaning products in exclusive, outside of food preparation
place.
8 Hold clean spoons, forks, knives, or cups by their handles. 97.97 88.35
9 Clean the floor using cleaning agent if necessary, at food 96.09 77.64
cooking, selling, or serving areas.
10 Place cooked foods at 45cm away from floors. 97.97 96.89
11 Ensure school canteen is free from LILATI* and other 97.66 94.88
animals.
12 Throw dry and wet garbage separately. 81.09 0.93
13 Ensure garbage bins are lined with plastic bags, covered, and 98.14 92.86
clean.
14 Throw garbage into main garbage bin or area. 98.75 99.84
Mean percentages 96.70 79.31
Note: Practices are mostly derived from the School Canteen Management Guidelines (SCMG).
*LILATI = cockroaches, flies and rodents (lipas, lalat and tikus)

Scores recorded from observations varied. Though most of the practices could be categorized as
positively rated, there were significantly low percentage scores for some food safety practices.
This shows a large difference in what was practiced and what was self-reported for some of the
practices.
Practice item number 12 (“Throw wet and dry garbage separately”) showed a considerable low
score with a mere 0.93% execution among the food handlers. This shows that dry and wet
garbage was hardly thrown separately as observed by the researcher. Although the self-report
scores were high (>99%) for food safety practice 2, 3 and 4, it was distinctively found through
observations that the percentage scores of performing the mentioned tasks were only 68.32%,
72.52% and 55.90% respectively.

4. Comparison between Observation and Self-Report

All respondents noticeably marked the highest score (“Always”) for regularity of performing
most of the food safety practices in this section. Based on the Wilcoxon signed rank test
statistics, the researcher managed to see the significance value for each of the observed item.
The significance value shows that most of the results for paired-comparison between observation
scores and self-report scores are significant. This basically means that the negative values of the
two scores indicated that the self-reported scores are significantly higher than the observation
scores. The results for variable 10 (place cooked foods at 45cm away from floors) and 14 (throw
garbage into main garbage bin or area) on the other hand is not significant. These two variables
had earlier recorded close scores from both the respondents and researcher showing the
insignificant difference.

4
CONCLUSION AND APPLICATION
1. Food Safety Practice Awareness
The study revealed, via questionnaire, that respondents have the key idea of what nature of
practice is acceptable and what is not in a foodservice environment. Almost all respondents
(95%) rated all practices correctly. The findings in this section show that all respondents can be
assumed to understand that most body contact towards foods or utensils is unacceptable in most
occasions. There are also high percentages of respondents who understand that using clean
crockery and equipment is crucial in food safety aspect of food handling which were shown in
the findings. For instance 100% disagreed that unclean, colored or printed materials can be used
to wrap, line or cover food and 93.8% respondents disagreed to placing of cutleries in apron’s
pocket. Besides that, respondents acknowledged that secreting body fluids or anything alike,
anywhere in the food handling or serving area is not acceptable in regard to food safety.
Respondents were also able to determine whether certain physical activities involving people,
food, and food areas are appropriate or not. These proved a positive attitude among the food
handlers in term of food safety practices when some parts of the world were lacking in this area
(Santana, Almeida, Fereira, & Almeida, 2009). Nevertheless, a minority of respondents seemed
to have a conflict in term of storing of foods and equipment. Only 2.5% agreed to this type of
misconduct as they thought it was acceptable for plates to be placed, transported, or stored with
food in it by stacking them besides that 6.2% agreed that cutleries and tongs can be placed in the
pocket.

2. Comparison Between Self-Reported and Observed Food-Safety Practice

Generally respondents in this study rated themselves high with mean percentage score >95%
(Table 3).On average, the self-rated scores would suggest that the food handlers actually have an
excellent level of food safety practices. However, observation result was found to be
contradicting with the self-reported scores. Although several items were documented to be
diligently performed such as separate storage for non-food items and throwing the garbage into
designated areas, they were outnumbered by the rest of the items that were not, such as throwing
wet and dry garbage separately and using proper tools to hold cooked foods (Table 3). Largely,
scores through observation were significantly lower than those of self-report. Even though
reactivity, as phrased by Clayton and Griffith (2004), was expected, the environment and nature
of foodservice in school canteen were suggested as a less conducive place because food handlers
were fully occupied with chores to keep themselves in check. This is agreed by Hertzman and
Barrash (2007) in their article stating that employees were often busy trying to complete tasks
and services which usually did not encourage them to perform proper food safety practice. This
however was seen as an advantage for the researcher as it lessened the probability for behavioral
biasness and contributed to higher accuracy of data collected. Having said that, reactivity factor,
however still has to be considered since there are no scientific measures taken in this research to
ensure that respondents were totally free from the influence.
The results from this section fundamentally showed that respondents rated themselves higher
(96.70%) than what they actually performed (79.31%). Perhaps the need to appear excellent
affected their responses. This was noticed during the observation sessions as lower scores were
mainly documented for most of the items as depicted in table 1. Further data analysis using
Wilcoxon signed rank test proved significant differences between self-report and observation
scores (Table 4). Observed behaviors have been proven to contradict with other factors such as
self-reported behaviors, knowledge and intentions (Redmond & Griffith, 2003).

3. Evident of School Canteen Management Guidelines (SCMG) Effectiveness

The findings from the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests on demographic and food safety
practice data have shown that the practice was positively influenced by the SCMG awareness (p
value = .028). This shows a promising quality that the guideline should be instilled and utilized
5
further. Since every public school canteen is supplied with the SCMG, operators must make an
effort to incorporate the guidelines in their day-to-day activities to the fullest. Co-operation and
appropriate response from food handlers generally and canteen operators specifically are
imperative in realizing the vision of food safety in schools. Non-corresponding action from the
targeted groups (food handlers) can render the ministry’s guidelines to go to waste (Kennedy,
Todd & Lapinski. 2005).
On the flipside of the findings however, it was found that 91.3% respondents were aware of the
guidelines while 84.5% actually reported they comprehended the guidelines. Introducing the
guidelines to food handlers has been an internal battle among the employers and employees.
Research shows that the compliance and practice of a guideline have been quite a challenge for
workers and it could be further influenced by the background of the employees as argued by
Koch (2011) and Kennedy, et. al, (2005).
On the flipside of the findings however, it was found that 91.3% respondents were aware of the
guidelines while 84.5% actually reported they comprehended the guidelines. Introducing the
guidelines to food handlers has been an internal battle among the employers and employees.
Research shows that the compliance and practice of a guideline have been quite a challenge for
workers and it could be further influenced by the background of the employees as argued by
Koch (2011) and Kennedy, et. al, (2005).

4. Conclusion and Recommendations

The observation score (79.31%) indicated that respondents were of lower level than they rated
themselves (96.70%).However it is to be highlighted that the particular score is not that
worrisome either, provided improvements are made and imposed consistently in the future.
Based on the score rating, food handlers generally demonstrated moderate food safety practice,
which indicated a level below ‘good’. This basically means that most of the practices were
satisfactory and acceptable in regard to food safety as proposed by the guidelines. It is believed
that both the facility and personal factors played an integral part through the deliverance of good
practice, while taking reactivity factor into consideration. It is also suggested that the
respondents were able to score moderate food safety practice due to the fact that they were
positively affected by the awareness of the SCMG. The school division which published the
SCMG should emphasize on the importance of reading and understanding of the book by every
food handler. It should be made compulsory and measure them by a periodical assessment so that
food handlers make it a point to learn the correct food safety knowledge and practice from time
to time.

REFERENCES

Breen, A., Brock, S., Crawford, K., Docherty, M., Drommond, G. Gill, L. et al.
(2006). The refrigerator safari. British Food Journal, Vol. 108 No. 6 pp. 487-
494.

Church, S. (1997). School food-turning the tide. Nutrition & Food Science,97(1), 20-22.

Clayton, D. A., & Griffith, C. J. (2004). Observation of food safety practices in

catering using notational analysis. British Food Journal, Vol. 106 No. 3 pp.
211-227.

6
 Colquhoun, A., Lyon, P., & Alexander, E. (2001). Feeding minds and bodies: The
Edwardian context of school meals. Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 31 No. 3
pp. 117-125.

De Silva-Sanigorski, A., Breheny, T., Jones, L., Lacy, K., Kremer, P., Carpenter, L.,
Bolton, K., Posser, L., Gibbs, L., Waters, E. and Swinburn, B., (2011). Government food
service policies and guidelines do not create healthy school canteens. Australian and
New Zealand Journal of Public Health. Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 117-121.

Hertzman, J. & Barrash, D. (2007). An assessment of food safety knowledge and

practices of catering employees. British Food Journal, Vol. 109 pp. 562-576.

Kennedy, J., Jackson, V., Cowan, C., Blair, I., McDowell, D., & Bolton, D. (2005).
Consumer food safety knowledge. British Food Journal, Vol. 107, No. 7 pp.
441-452.

Koch, S. L. (2011). Contemporary Sociology : A Journal of Reviews. Vol. 40 No. 1

pp. 72

Ministry of Education (2011). Quick facts Malaysia educational statistics. Retrieved

September 21. 2011, from www.moe.com.my.

Redmond, E. C., & Griffith, C. J. (2005a). Consumer perception of food safety

education sources. Implications for effective strategy development. British
Food Journal, Vol. 107 No. 7 pp. 467-483.

Redmond, E. C., & Griffith, C. J. (2003). Consumer food handling in the home: a
review of food safety studies. Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 66, pp. 130-61.

Santana, N. G., Almeida, R.C.C., Fereira, J. S. & Almeida, P. F. (2009).

Microbiological quality and safety of meals served to children and adoption of good
manufacturing practices in public school catering in Brazil. Food Control, Vol. 20, pp.
255-261.

Seaman, C. & Moss, J. (2006). Generating effective change in school meals: a case
study. Nutrition & Food Science. Vol. 36 No. 5 pp. 305-314.

Subratty, A. H., Chan Sun, M., & Kassean. H. K. (2003). A need for healthy canteens
in secondary schools in Mauritius. Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 33 No. 5
pp. 208-212.

View publication stats