anced meals. School lunches also have major educational significance as a forum for guidance on diet and communication between teachers and schoolchildren and as opportunities for encouraging positive interpersonal relations among schoolchildren. As of May 2003, approximately 10.43 million young students nationwide were receiving school meals (Figure 1-1-4).

School	Participation rate (as a percentage of all kindergarteners and schoolchildren)
Full school meal program	Supplemental school meal program	Milk program	Total
Elementary schools	98.7%	0.3%	0.4%	99.4% (7,180,600 students)
Junior high schools	69.0%	0.4%	13.1%	82.5% (3,094,031 students)
Special education schools	88.5%	0.0%	1.6%	90.1% (86,922 students)
Evening high schools	42.5%	19.0%	0.5%	61.9% (68,405 students)
Total	88.1%	0.5%	4.7%	93.2% (10,429,958 students)

## 2 ) Improvements to Meal Content and Dining Environment

Schools have sought in the past several years to bring greater variety to the meals offered at school by, for example, utilizing local produce as ingredients in school meals and putting local cuisine on the menu. Utilizing local produce in school meals is valuable educationally in getting schoolchildren to take an interest in the food production and culture of their communities, and MEXT promotes the use of local produce in instructors' manuals on school meal guidance and in learning materials on eating habits designed for students. Efforts are also being made to improve dining environments by upgrading school cafeterias.

Given the educational significance of having schoolchildren acquire the desirable habit of regularly eating rice, the traditional staple of the Japanese diet, MEXT is encouraging schools to make rice-based school lunches a regular feature (an average of 2.9 times per week in FY2003) and contributing to greater variety in school meals. Bearing in mind the information provided in the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labour’s “Japanese Nutritional Requirements—Meal Consumption Standards” and the changes in family eating habits in recent years, MEXT adjusted its average daily nutritional requirement standards for schoolchildren in May 2003 and has been working to improve the content of school meals.

## 3 ) Enhancing health management systems

There have not been any incidents of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O-157 food poisoning in school lunches since 1997, but continuing incidents of food poisoning due to other causes mandates thoroughgoing health management.

MEXT has been offering guidance on facilities/equipment and cooking processes and seeking to improve and enhance facilities by, say, introducing a cooking system (dry system) that uses dry floors to check the growth of bacteria in humid conditions. To address recent concerns about school meals, MEXT revised its School Meal Health Management Standards in March 2003 to ensure appropriate temperature control for food products and thoroughgoing health management by persons involved in preparing and serving school meals, and to further improve/enhance health management in school lunch programs. MEXT has also upgraded health management efforts through training sessions and conferences for school nutritionists.

## (3) Promoting Food Education

MEXT has sponsored symposiums to promote food education and, since FY2001, has been distributing learning materials on eating habits to 1st graders, 5th graders and 7th graders nationwide. MEXT supported food education in a variety of other ways in FY2004, such as by preparing guidance/educational pam-