Jakarta - To improve the school milk programme suspended last year the Education Ministry will use the advice and expertise of the Regional Centre for Community Nutrition (RCCN) which comes under the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO).
Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said the centre was asked to make a full study of the programme and make recommendations.
"The nutrional food programme for school children is important in the present situation when food prices are rising and the poor are the hardest hit," he said after visiting the SEAMEO Centre for Tropical Diseases and the RCNN at the Universiti Indonesia Kampus Salemba here Tuesday.
Hishammuddin wants students in Malaysia to not only have healthy physical growth but also cognitive development through nutritional food.
Hishammuddin, who is also SEAMEO president, said he hoped the RCNN could help his ministry to overcome the problems of tainted milk causing food-poisoning, low quality of milk and the distribution system.
"SEAMEO has experience, complete data and wide expertise in this field and we must make good use of it," said the minister who is here on a three day working-visit.
While here Hishammuddin will meet the Indonesian National Education Minister Prof Dr Bambang Sudibyo and visit SEAMEO centres of excellence in Bogor and Pondok Cabe Wednesday before going to Yogyakarta on Thursday to deliver a special speech at the `Strengthening the Quality of Education in Southeast Asia` workshop. By Mohd Nasir Yusoff
Source: http://www.bernama.com (August 06, 2008)
