On one hand, if you want to show respect to the rights of the Muslim students, then must provide halal food as per the Ministry guideline. But if you insist “only halal” food, then you are denying the rights of the other students. Being communities from religions that respect everyone, the best is to have a section of the canteen at the vernacular schools to cater for Muslim students and staff. There’s no problem with Tamil schools as they don’t serve pork nor beef based products. \u00a0So, good thing that there’s not such circulars from MOE curtailing the food types.<\/p>\n
I wonder, how many schools cater for the non-Muslims students by offering the respective food cooked by own community – at least can also help the small operators. Wonder if the ministry has such guidelines.<\/p>\n
The best is to offer a variety, as long as the students are aware and don’t mix utensils.<\/p>\n
I still remember the char kuey teow in my school, prepared by the Chinese uncle. Delicious!<\/p>\n
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\nThere is no directive from the Education Ministry that only halal food be sold at all Chinese and Tamil primary schools, said its\u00a0Deputy Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong.<\/p>\n
He said while under the ministry’s guidelines, canteen operators must provide halal food if there was a sufficient number of Muslim students in the school concerned, Chinese and Tamil school canteen operators could also offer non-halal food to their non-Muslim students.<\/p>\n
“However, in practice, school canteen operators usually offer pork-free food,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Dr Wee was responding to a vernacular news report stating that a circular was recently issued by the Negri Sembilan Education Department to schools in the state that only halal food be sold by canteen operators.<\/p>\n
Based on initial feedback, he said Negri Sembilan’s Education Director had confirmed that no such directive had been issued.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n