THE PERCEPTION OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL LEARNERS OF
ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE REGARDING THE SERVICES
RENDERED BY THE SCHOOL CANTEEN



Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

In every school, canteens are always present. Not just for the extra profit the school will get but also for the school to provide foods that are healthy for the staff and for the learners.

School canteen is perhaps the busiest place in school. It is the place where alnost every student is ecpected to pay a visit at leas one or two times a day, and that not just to have a taste of some delicacies but also to brush him or herself up with the latest information real or based on some rumors. It is also an integral part of a day to day lives of the learners in school. It is where everybody eats, drinks, and hangs out during free time. School canteen is also a great place to promote an enjoyment of healthy eating. It is important in every school. Both public and private. It may operate under a variety of management structures depending on the individual characteristics and needs of the school.

Every school should be strongly committed to support student's health and well being throught its curriculum and a range of initiatives that offer oppurtunities that pronote physical and social health of an individual. Canteen operation can be considered one of the auxilliary services provided as ambiance, cleanliness, orderliness, customer service, and especially tge nutritional value od the foods.

The primary aim of the canteen is to cater food to the teacher as well as the students. To fulfill this aim, our school canteen us well-equipped. There are separate cabins for teachers, boys, and girls.


St. Michael's College school canteen is like any other canteens that needs to have a better system. Since last October 2016, the administrators of the said school decided to transfer the Senior High Department to the Basic Education Campus leading to massive adjustment of the Junior High School Learners.


Conceptual Framework 






Statement of the Problem

            This study determined the perception of the Junior High School learners of St. Michael’s College regarding the services rendered by the school canteen as of S.Y. 2017-2018
            It sought to answer the following questions:

1.    How does the school canteen’s service affects student’s performance in school?

2.    How does the school canteen’s service affects student’s moral discipline?

3.    How did the services rendered by the canteen affect the learner's health?


4.    What are the comments and suggestion of the respondents to improve the school practices?
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The finding and result of the present study would primarily benefit the pupils and might as well as the teachers and school administrators. In the same way, it was the aim of this study to evaluate the difficulties encountered by the leaners and the solution of the said problem with the kind of service that the school canteen rendered. As a further matter, this research may provide opportunities and enhance the services that the school canteen offered. This study will provide some understanding and information on how they will manage the canteen for the leaners and teachers.

To the school administrator: This study may be a great help in improving the services canteen and other school food services.
To the students: This study will help the learners to have their equality at forming lines, a better canteen services and do the 5S+1 easily.
To the teachers: This study may serve as an information for them to actively take part in maintaining the good quality of the services offered by the canteen. This can help as it would present them as good role models for the learners to follow.


 Scope and Limitations

            This study focused on the perception of the Junior High School learners regarding the services rendered by the school canteen. This study is only limited to the extent of the school year, 2017-2018. The study was conducted in St. Michael’s College, Basic Education Department, Iligan City with the junior high school students as the respondents of the study. One possible limitation of this study is the honesty of the respondents in answering the questionnaire. Hence, the researchers personally conducted the distribution of the questionnaire to the student for objectivity and accuracy.

Definition of Terms


Canteen- a restaurant provided by an organization such as a military camp, college, factory, or company for its soldiers, students, staff, etc.

Discipline- the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.

Food- any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink, or that plants absorb, in order to maintain life and growth.

Nutrition- the process of providing or obtaining the food necessary for health and growth.

Service- a system supplying a public need such as transport, communications, or utilities such as electricity and water.

Student- a person who is studying at a school or college


Chapter 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Based on the Australian Government Department of Health (2013), the school canteen is a great place to promote an enjoyment of healthy eating.   For students who use the canteen regularly, the food purchased makes a significant contribution to their food intake and nutrition; therefore, it makes sense to ensure the best food possible is available to enhance their ability to learn and take in the information presented to them in class.

There are many aspects of a child’s life that may be restricted in an educational sitting. For example, the type of reading material accessed in the library, internet access and visual material (DVD) and the clothes they wear. It is appropriate to restrict unhealthy food in an educational setting. The canteen also plays an important role within the broader school environment – that of reinforcing knowledge, skills, and behaviors about healthy eating and lifestyle which are taught in the classroom. Food provided at school has a considerate influence on the development of children’s long term eating habits, food preferences and attitude towards food. The school canteen plays a vital role in promoting healthy foods and creating a school culture of healthy eating.

Two main ways in which school canteens have an impact on school life are in supporting teaching through proper nutrition and health practices; including the provision of special dietary requirements for some students and staffs, in being sectors of schools which can easily become trouble zone if specific measures are not put in place to prevent this.

A large proportion of students eat in school canteens every day. Since they cannot leave the school during the day, they constitute a captive market for canteen operators. This, however should never lead to exploitation through high prices or poor quality foods and drinks. Schools have a duty to feed students and staffs properly. Administrators and canteen committees must ensure that school canteens meet national standards for food preparation, storage, hygiene, and safety. Failure to do so would result in serious health problems for the staff and students who consume the fare.

Well-planned school canteens support adequate development and learning. They provide adequate nutrition which gives students and staff high energy levels and prevents diseases, such as obesity and anemia, which are related to poor diet. Progressive canteens also forge synergistic links with school’s food and nutrition departments and science departments, where they exist. School canteens should serve food and drinks which are low in saturated fats, sugar, salt, and food dyes. More fruits, fruit juices, vegetables, and whole grain food should be on the menu. There should be fewer soft drinks, no energy drinks or sports drinks, no alcohol, and no deep-fried food. It will be necessary to retrain student’s palates in some instances, but this is in the best interest of the students.

The school canteen follows guidelines on operational management set by the Department of Education. These guidelines are hereby issued in order to rationalize the operation and management of school canteens and to ensure and provide hands-on-training for pupils on planning, purchasing, handling, storing, preparing, serving, safe, and nutritional meals.

In school, a proper regulations and supervisions should be implemented because a school canteen can become a trouble sometimes. And a school canteen as we observe, it is noisy. As a preventive measures, a canteen administrator should implement rules for everyone to follow in order to avoid chaos and good behavior in canteen. Some may even want to continue eating during class. Also this will eliminate fighting, jumping, shouting, bullying, and extortion of money and food for younger student. And most of it, it is important to show good manners and respect to the teachers and the canteen staffs. We do have problems regarding the services and food the canteen offers. With school budget so tight and no hint of expanding school meals program, it can be very hard for school to provide a catering service they would like. A service that can fully tackle the problems. School canteens don’t only have the job to ensure they are helping students develop healthy eating habits to tackle obesity, but also have to simple ensure students are not going through the school day hungry.

Canteen gives a service that worth for what students paid. A canteen must have a complete facilities and good personalities of the staff. All canteens have the responsibility to its costumer safely and good. A proper canteen service also need to regards health and safety issues like good ventilation, by having a clean window, a suitable lighting, enough room space for tables and chairs, and clean with appropriate waste container, proper maintenance and equipment and also by keeping the floors free from obstructions and any other safety actions to avoid accidents.

Our school canteen is perhaps the busiest place in the school. It is the place where almost every student is expected to pay at least one or two visits a day and that not just to have a taste of some delicacies, but also to brush her or him up with the latest information, real or based on some rumor. Thus, there is a free and frank discussion of fashion of various boys and girls and teaching habits of different teachers. Sometimes, discussion can centre on some political or economic matter also. Particularly, the senior students may discuss some new world development or new government policy on some matter.
The primary aim of the canteen is to cater food to the teacher as well as the students. To fulfil this aim, our school canteen is well-equipped. There are separate cabins for teachers, boys and girls. The teacher sit separately in their cabin which is their faculty room, but the boys and girls often mix up and sit together in their cabins. But what do our canteen serves, is it changed everyday? Is it healthy for us students and teachers? According to our canteen staffs, they serve healthy foods as much as possible and all dishes are cooked at home and not served the other day. The juices are made up of mineral water. Now that’s what you call safe.

Adolescents need a balanced diet/nutrition intake because their physical development and activity are dramatically increasing (Kim, 2002). They prefer tastier and trendy food so they eat a lot of fast food and instant snacks which is affected by food commercials and convenience (The Food and Drug Association, 2007). As a result of that, there are a lot of health problems caused from much intake of sugar, salt, fat, etc. Therefore, in early 1997, the school meal program started to operate in all the primary schools and expanded to high schools in 1999 and middle schools in 2002 (The ministry of education, 1999) to improve their body strength and dietary life by providing a healthy well-balanced lunch (Lee, 2003).


General Business Structure of Canteens
School canteens may operate under a variety of management structures depending on the individual characteristics and needs of the school. Schools may decide to provide a food service to students in several ways.

Scenario 1: Full-time paid canteen manager plus paid staff and/or volunteers. The canteen manager is present at all times and their work is supported by paid staff and possibly volunteers.

Scenario 2: Part-time paid canteen manager plus volunteer staff. The canteen manager will attend the canteen in the morning to allocate tasks, to volunteer staff, and return in the afternoon to finish operations for the day.

Scenario 3: Fully staffed by volunteers – the canteen is staffed by a volunteer canteen manager with volunteer staff. It may alternatively be staffed by a group of volunteers each whom is responsible for the operation of the canteen on particular days.

Management agreements
The management agreements between the parties should state clearly how any profits made from the canteen are to be distributed. There are a number of options that should be considered.                   
·         The school council pays profits to the school for inclusion in the annual school budget and expenditure is in accordance with school priorities established by the school community in the school charter and plan.
·         The school council pays profits to the school but they are not included in the annual school budget. The school and school council determine the use of profits together. This option allours for some of the canteen profits to be invested back into the canteen so that heathy changes can centime to be made.
           
Following the standards a proper canteen service should meet, DepEd once banned junk foods and soft drinks selling at every school canteen. Whether we like it or not, our healthy lifestyle is a top priority each of us should have. Banning of unhealthy products doesn’t mean that were not allowed to eat it forever. It means that all of us have to eat healthy food and drinks for our health, every once in a while. We can eat junk foods, but we should set our own limit to meet a healthy lifestyle. A proper canteen should offer not just healthy products but also healthy surroundings. A clean canteen, a clean and healthy canteen operators, a clean and healthy food.

          A number of studies have analyzed the link between the consumption of certain types of food and obesity and the influence of well-balanced school meals on the nutritional status of children and adolescents. This demonstrates the importance of school-meal programs and their influence on healthy food choices among children and adolescents. All-day schools, as government-supported institutions, represent an opportunity to influence nutrition patterns by offering a highly nutritious lunch. This might contribute to the development of long-lasting healthy food-related lifestyles and good behavior and dietary habits.
         Costumer’s satisfaction studies have been part of standard repertoire of marketing science. In the service sectors, especially, the food retail industry, the high relevance of service quality for business success is recognized and examined by periodical studies. The literature shows the effect of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty and all authors agree that customer satisfaction has a high impact at a firm's success or failure. Up to now, research dealing with school meals has focused on nutrition, analyzing the weight or the adequate supply of vitamins and nutrients. The most comprehensive study is that of Meyer et.al (1997) who identified three factors influencing student's satisfaction: quality of food, dining ambience, and staff which have the highest impact on customer satisfaction and on purchasing rate. However, there are several other influencing factors such as nutrition, variety, time, cost, queue time, and portion size. For paid meals, price is one of the most important factors influencing lunch participation. If price increases, the participation rate decreases. Additionally, a larger school, a closed campus, and an on-site kitchen contribute to a higher participation rate.
(Balden, Frederike Lulfs, & Spiller, Achim. 2009. Journal of Food Service. United States: Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

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