Муниципалитет: экономика и управление (Mar 2024)
Assessment of satisfaction with school meals in municipal units of the Republic of Bashkortostan as a method of obtaining feedback when managing food quality
Abstract
Introduction. School meals are essential for children's health, development and learning. An effective school feeding system is also important for the development of the local economy. Poor quality nutrition leads to children refusing to eat at school, unnecessary food losses, financial and material costs, and deterioration in children’s health. Low satisfaction with children's nutrition in schools shows the ineffectiveness of the school nutrition system and requires a search, study and evaluation of possible measures, one of which is a system of regular feedback on the assessment of nutrition quality from parents and children. The materials and methods used in the work are a review of research results on the impact of school meals on the health and well-being of children and families in need, the impact on the economy; review of the practice of collecting feedback on school nutrition issues in Russia; sociological survey on satisfaction with school meals in the Republic of Bashkortostan. Results and discussion. It has been revealed that recently the role of parents in improving the quality of children's nutrition in schools has been increasing, one of the manifestations of which is the practice of sociological surveys by federal and regional authorities on the topic of satisfaction with school meals. The article presents the method developed by the author for ranking municipalities in terms of satisfaction with school meals, the results of its testing based on data collected during a series of sociological surveys of parents of schoolchildren in the Republic of Bashkortostan on the topic of the quality of school meals in 2022-2023. A trend has been identified to increase satisfaction with school meals in the Republic of Bashkortostan, but it is uneven across the region; and 28% of parents in the region noted that there are no changes, and 5% rated the changes as negative. It is concluded that it is necessary to form a system for monitoring satisfaction with the quality of school meals and its effectiveness for a comparative analysis of municipalities in the region and to identify measures to improve the quality of meals in schools. Thus, based on the results of surveys and a review of experience accumulated in other countries, more active inclusion of children and parents in decision-making on children’s nutrition in schools, collection of data on food waste by suppliers and dishes, and assessment of children’s nutrition directly in schools are justified.
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