Children attending the last day of term on Friday will be able to enjoy their Christmas party despite directives issued by the teachers’ union on the handling of foods at such events.

Malta Union of Teachers president Marco Bonnici said on Thursday that the intention was not to “ruin the fun”, pointing out that parties would still be held, although some teachers would be making arrangements to ensure they adhered to new rules introduced earlier this year.

The MUT issued a series of directives to members on Wednesday complaining that teachers were being forced to inspect their students’ lunchboxes to see there were no banned items.

The Health Ministry insisted that the new rules only applied to tuck shops. Still, the directives remain in place.

Apart from this, some school policies have since gone overboard

The legal notice in question lays down that “only food that meets the requirements as outlined in the criteria issued by the Advisory Council may be offered for sale or sold or in any manner provided by the administration of schools”.

According to the Health Ministry, a number of meetings were held with principals, heads of school and tuck shop providers to explain the new rules. The MUT is insisting that teachers were not consulted.

With the new rules, Mr Bonnici noted, the onus on the teachers was now even greater because they had to monitor what children ate even while on outings. When it was pointed out that the legal notice did not refer to teachers but tuck shops, he said the notice should not be taken in isolation but in conjunction with the healthy eating policy of 2015 and two circulars issued by the Ministry for Education and Employment earlier this year.

“The directives issued... by the MUT in fact refer to these two circulars, which contain lists of permissible and prohibited foods, checklists to be used by the health inspectors and various other related documents.

“Apart from this, some school policies have since gone overboard and have added their own extreme regulations such as educators having to smell drinks before giving permission to each student to drink from their own bottle,” Mr Bonnici said, adding the situation had become “ridiculous”.