SINGAPORE: As far as parental milestones go, 2025 is going to be the last year that I will be able to experience a very specific school canteen-related joy.
The youngest member of our family will be entering Primary 1, and will have to struggle with recess-financial management - for the first time. Sadly for me, it will be the last time I get to see these hilarious episodes of canteen first-timer shenanigans.
School canteens - and the challenges schools face in finding stallholders - have been in the news recently, sparking discussions of the need for alternative, more sustainable models. Among the suggestions thrown up include catered food from central kitchens and pre-packed meals from vending machines.
In light of these conversations, I decided to take a straw poll - from a sample size of three, namely my children who, in descending order, are in Primary 5, Primary 3 and lastly, K2.
“Would you rather the canteen aunties and uncles run the stalls, or would you prefer catered food?”, I asked.
Their response?
“I want the aunties and uncles to continue because they’re nice to us.”
“Catered food? You mean we can’t choose?!”
“What’s a canteen?”
Clearly, this woefully small sample is both unscientific and not representative of the larger school-going cohort in Singapore. And clearly, they have little understanding of the challenges involved in running a school canteen - especially when it comes to the logistics, efficiency and hygiene needed to feed hundreds of hungry, growing kids.
So do they deserve a vote in deciding how their mealtime during recess should manifest? Well, I think they do. But then how do you make sense, from the baseless wants and needs of mostly inexperienced voices?
The Ministry of Education’s (MOE) consideration of central kitchens is pragmatic in every sense of the word. The proposed solution of a model for meals to be pre-ordered and prepared at a central kitchen before being delivered to schools is exceptionally reasonable, with Yusof Ishak Secondary already adopting and demonstrating the model’s effectiveness.
Even with the recent case of mass food poisoning as with the MindChamps incident, the likelihood of such cases repeating will remain low, undoubtedly with the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and Ministry of Health (MOH) ready to jump into the fray with hawk-eyed governance if and when this central kitchen model becomes a mainstay.
So if MOE has a solution that will not only alleviate the burden of running a mini-hawker centre for school admins, whilst efficiently feeding hungry hordes of students with nutritionally-balanced meals, and at the same time eradicating the cost struggles of canteen vendors - then why hasn’t it already been rolled out on a full scale?
The answer I think, lies in the inherent value of having actual uncles and aunties in the canteens running the stalls.
Students having recess at their school canteen. (File photo: MOE)
First off, we need to acknowledge that not all school canteens are created equal. My canteen experience in pre-university was terrible. I’ve had explosive diarrhoea from eating an expired tau sar bun, multiple servings of indecipherable food items and even chicken rice without the all-important chicken component.
On the other hand, I have incredibly fond memories of my primary school canteen. I remember the kind auntie who always had a hot roti john ready for me to have for breakfast, as I was one of the earliest kids to arrive in school. Then there was the drinks uncle, who sold mildly-coloured tap water with pieces of pineapple floating about in a large, transparent plastic container - he made an absolute show of scooping as little pineapple as possible per 10-cent cup.
And who can forget the nasi lemak vendor, whose hot rice and micro-thin omelette squares were often served with large dollops of sambal that made it worthwhile to hurriedly queue for a sweat-inducing 50-cent plate.
Interactions with these canteen vendors were the first few vital lessons in commercial exchanges I had as a kid. Beyond just the act of counting out coins and budgeting for snacks afterwards, I also had to learn to negotiate, especially when I simply had to have more pineapple chunks in my "pineapple" drink.
All these were absolutely valuable lessons - yes - even the terrible ones in Pre-U. I can now tell at a glance if a tau sar bun is expired and will always challenge the notion of a “chicken-less chicken rice”.
Now as a father, I see these lessons reoccur in repeat as my three children journey their way through our school system.
My eldest is in a school that has a strict stand on what constitutes healthy eating, with guidelines on food that can and should be packed from home. The canteen adheres to this stand and serves only nutritionally approved meals, which makes for a bland smorgasbord of options. As such, said child is often pleading with my wife to pack her a sausage burrito. But nevertheless, she loves her canteen for the sheer friendliness of the vendors.
My son, on the other hand, has a school canteen that, from his description, sounds like a fast-food franchise. His daily recess ritual for the past three years has been two fish balls and a hashbrown, followed by maniacal running and savings from his allowance for his next Pokémon-associated purchase.
The third child - who still thinks coins are but collectable trinkets - is now primed to go on the same transactional, budgeting, negotiation and socialisation canteen journey as did her elder siblings.
Will a production-line style catered food model curtail these lessons? Maybe, or maybe not. But it is certain that with every pragmatic and efficient solution, the fewer chances there will be for meaningful human engagement.
Perhaps there’s an alternative to canteen versus catered - maybe a hybrid of both?
Whichever the case, I truly believe canteen stall operators aren’t there because selling food to students with limited allowances is such a lucrative business, but because they genuinely want to feed the young, developing masses. So perhaps we need to orchestrate a better, more sustainable subsidy scaffold for them to continue.
Then again, what do I know. My survey was far from scientific. All I know and will always remember is the big smile on the canteen auntie’s face whenever I wolfed down that first roti john she made for the day - with absolute relish.
Imran Johri is a marketing and editorial professional and a father of three.
Continue reading...
The youngest member of our family will be entering Primary 1, and will have to struggle with recess-financial management - for the first time. Sadly for me, it will be the last time I get to see these hilarious episodes of canteen first-timer shenanigans.
School canteens - and the challenges schools face in finding stallholders - have been in the news recently, sparking discussions of the need for alternative, more sustainable models. Among the suggestions thrown up include catered food from central kitchens and pre-packed meals from vending machines.
In light of these conversations, I decided to take a straw poll - from a sample size of three, namely my children who, in descending order, are in Primary 5, Primary 3 and lastly, K2.
“Would you rather the canteen aunties and uncles run the stalls, or would you prefer catered food?”, I asked.
Their response?
“I want the aunties and uncles to continue because they’re nice to us.”
“Catered food? You mean we can’t choose?!”
“What’s a canteen?”
Clearly, this woefully small sample is both unscientific and not representative of the larger school-going cohort in Singapore. And clearly, they have little understanding of the challenges involved in running a school canteen - especially when it comes to the logistics, efficiency and hygiene needed to feed hundreds of hungry, growing kids.
So do they deserve a vote in deciding how their mealtime during recess should manifest? Well, I think they do. But then how do you make sense, from the baseless wants and needs of mostly inexperienced voices?
LET THEM EAT CANTEEN FOOD
The Ministry of Education’s (MOE) consideration of central kitchens is pragmatic in every sense of the word. The proposed solution of a model for meals to be pre-ordered and prepared at a central kitchen before being delivered to schools is exceptionally reasonable, with Yusof Ishak Secondary already adopting and demonstrating the model’s effectiveness.
Even with the recent case of mass food poisoning as with the MindChamps incident, the likelihood of such cases repeating will remain low, undoubtedly with the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and Ministry of Health (MOH) ready to jump into the fray with hawk-eyed governance if and when this central kitchen model becomes a mainstay.
So if MOE has a solution that will not only alleviate the burden of running a mini-hawker centre for school admins, whilst efficiently feeding hungry hordes of students with nutritionally-balanced meals, and at the same time eradicating the cost struggles of canteen vendors - then why hasn’t it already been rolled out on a full scale?
The answer I think, lies in the inherent value of having actual uncles and aunties in the canteens running the stalls.
Students having recess at their school canteen. (File photo: MOE)
Related:
RECESS IS A CLASS OF ITS OWN
First off, we need to acknowledge that not all school canteens are created equal. My canteen experience in pre-university was terrible. I’ve had explosive diarrhoea from eating an expired tau sar bun, multiple servings of indecipherable food items and even chicken rice without the all-important chicken component.
On the other hand, I have incredibly fond memories of my primary school canteen. I remember the kind auntie who always had a hot roti john ready for me to have for breakfast, as I was one of the earliest kids to arrive in school. Then there was the drinks uncle, who sold mildly-coloured tap water with pieces of pineapple floating about in a large, transparent plastic container - he made an absolute show of scooping as little pineapple as possible per 10-cent cup.
And who can forget the nasi lemak vendor, whose hot rice and micro-thin omelette squares were often served with large dollops of sambal that made it worthwhile to hurriedly queue for a sweat-inducing 50-cent plate.
Interactions with these canteen vendors were the first few vital lessons in commercial exchanges I had as a kid. Beyond just the act of counting out coins and budgeting for snacks afterwards, I also had to learn to negotiate, especially when I simply had to have more pineapple chunks in my "pineapple" drink.
All these were absolutely valuable lessons - yes - even the terrible ones in Pre-U. I can now tell at a glance if a tau sar bun is expired and will always challenge the notion of a “chicken-less chicken rice”.
Related:
LET THE CHILDREN CHOOSE
Now as a father, I see these lessons reoccur in repeat as my three children journey their way through our school system.
My eldest is in a school that has a strict stand on what constitutes healthy eating, with guidelines on food that can and should be packed from home. The canteen adheres to this stand and serves only nutritionally approved meals, which makes for a bland smorgasbord of options. As such, said child is often pleading with my wife to pack her a sausage burrito. But nevertheless, she loves her canteen for the sheer friendliness of the vendors.
My son, on the other hand, has a school canteen that, from his description, sounds like a fast-food franchise. His daily recess ritual for the past three years has been two fish balls and a hashbrown, followed by maniacal running and savings from his allowance for his next Pokémon-associated purchase.
The third child - who still thinks coins are but collectable trinkets - is now primed to go on the same transactional, budgeting, negotiation and socialisation canteen journey as did her elder siblings.
Will a production-line style catered food model curtail these lessons? Maybe, or maybe not. But it is certain that with every pragmatic and efficient solution, the fewer chances there will be for meaningful human engagement.
Perhaps there’s an alternative to canteen versus catered - maybe a hybrid of both?
Whichever the case, I truly believe canteen stall operators aren’t there because selling food to students with limited allowances is such a lucrative business, but because they genuinely want to feed the young, developing masses. So perhaps we need to orchestrate a better, more sustainable subsidy scaffold for them to continue.
Then again, what do I know. My survey was far from scientific. All I know and will always remember is the big smile on the canteen auntie’s face whenever I wolfed down that first roti john she made for the day - with absolute relish.
Imran Johri is a marketing and editorial professional and a father of three.
Continue reading...