School Food
As of 2022, there is no national school meal programme in Fiji. Almost all schools in Fiji have canteens that are operated either directly by the schools or outsourced to commercial caterers. In some rural schools without kitchen facilities, mothers’ groups provide cooked food to children. Many students regularly purchase food and beverages from school canteens, of which very few operate a full meal service.
School Canteen Guidelines were first published in 2005 by the National Food and Nutrition Centre and the Ministry of Health, with support from UNICEF and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community. The next revision for the School Canteen Guidelines (2013) was a collaborative project between the National Food and Nutrition Centre, the Ministry of Health and Medical Services and the Ministry of Education, Heritage and Arts. The School Food and Canteen policy (2017) was developed by the Ministry of Education, to supersede and replace previous school food policy and guidelines. Both this 2017 policy and the School Canteen Guidelines (2013) are currently under review by the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, and a new School Canteen Toolkit (2023) is in its final draft version, awaiting the review of the School Food and Canteen policy to ensure alignment. Guidelines are based on Fiji’s Food and Health Guidelines (2013), which are also being updated with support from FAO. Draft regulations monitoring the advertisement and sale of junk food for foods sold outside school premises have been awaiting approval since 2016.
The School Canteen Guidelines are implemented as part of the WHO Health Promoting Schools programme in Fiji, which aims to promote a ‘whole school approach’ to healthy behaviours such as maintaining a healthy diet, physical activity, and the prevention of drug and tobacco use. There are currently 84 Health Promoting Schools in the country, with plans to extend this initiative to include all 200 of Fiji’s schools.
The main characteristics of these standards are summarized below:
| Users of the guidance |
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| School food covered |
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| Objectives | to provide advice to schools on:
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| Basis | Food-Based |
| Food groups covered | Starchy foods, protein - animal & plant sources, fruits and vegetables, dairy & non-dairy sources of protein |
| Other guidance included | Recommendations on food safety and hygiene, canteen management, including costing and marketing |
Development process
In 2005, the Fiji Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and the National Food and Nutrition Centre developed the country’s first school canteen guidelines providing direction on the sale of nutritious foods and drinks. Mandatory compliance with these guidelines was stipulated by the Ministry of Education in early 2009. However, according to the Consumer Council of Fiji, school canteens continue to sell low-nutrition-value foods, snacks and carbonated beverages (Varman et al, 2013).
Updated School Canteen Guidelines (2013) were developed based on nutrition status (weight and height) data from schools (gathered from annual visits by the school health team), and school canteen and school lunch inspections, and from consultations between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, and Health Promoting Schools’ coordinators. The School Canteen Toolkit (2023) is the Standards Operating Procedure that operationalizes the School Food and Canteen Policy; these are based on the Food and Health Guidelines (2023), Fiji’s new Food Based Dietary Guidelines.
Implementation
The Ministry of Health is responsible for ensuring the implementation of the guidelines. It has developed a presentation based on the guidelines for dieticians and nutritionists to use for awareness raising in schools, and for training canteen operators and school management. There is also a learning and teaching resource package available for teacher professional development and for advocacy sessions, as part of the Health Promoting Schools programme. The guidelines advise each school to develop its own school canteen policy to ensure the sustainability of healthy changes; the toolkit contains a detailed list of recommended foods and drinks categories to be sold for schools to incorporate into their canteen policy. The guidelines are also used as an advocacy tool during Community and Parental Support meetings, to engage students and parents on food choices, food preparation and making healthy food choices, at school and at home.
The school principal/head teacher is the overall person in charge of the canteen and is responsible for establishing a school canteen committee (this is required irrespective of whether the canteen is operated by the schools or by private operators).
Menus at boarding schools are generally developed by the schools in consultation with dieticians from the Ministry of Health, who have been working with these schools to improve healthy options using the school canteen guidelines.
New training is planned for the revised school canteen guidelines toolkit, for canteen operators and teachers.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The Ministry of Health and Medical Services is responsible for ensuring school canteens are inspected each year, and there are fines for non-compliance with school canteen guidelines, e.g., the sale of prohibited foods. In the upcoming school canteen toolkit, school food service providers will require a license and business permit to operate. The canteen committee at the school level helps to ensure compliance with the guidelines, and a monitoring report should be provided to the principal at the end of each school term by the appointed committee member (s).
Relevant Links
- FAOLEX Fiji
- Food and Health Guidelines for Fiji
- Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF): Country profile of Fiji
Publications
Ensuring Fijian children’s access to healthy diets
Based on an assessment of the food environment around 84 Fijian schools, this brief provides a series of recommendations for policymakers to strengthen nutritional education, limit children's access to unhealthy food products and produce accessible key messages for students, teachers and parents.