Food safety attitudes of food hygiene and sanitation oriented program students / graduates at Higher Learning Institutions (IPT) / Mohd Onn Rashdi Abd Patah, Zuraini Mat Issa @ Zakaria and Khamis Mohammad Nor

Food safety issue is not new in Malaysia as problems such as unsafe food handling, doubtful food preparation, food poisoning outbreaks in schools and education institutions and spreading of infectious food borne illness has been discussed by the public more often than before. The purpose of this study is to examine the food safety knowledge and attitude of culinary based students from four (4) public and private higher learning institutions with prior knowledge on food safety, hygiene and sanitation. The researchers administered 120 questionnaires comprising of a 37-questions food safety survey to the students. A series of analysis were conducted to test the significant relationship between food safety knowledge and food safety attitude and seek any differences based on the students’ demographic profiles. The research finds that higher learning institution’s students who have prior knowledge on food safety partly do not represent their attitude towards food safety although their correlations recorded moderate positive relationships especially on dimensional measures of personal hygiene practice (/?=0.07, r=0.42) and keeping food at safe temperature (p=0.17, r=0.49). On the other hand their knowledge on dimensions of avoiding cross contamination (/?=0.00, r=0.36) and avoiding food from unsafe sources (p=0.02, r=0.36) were significantly related to their attitude. The finding also revealed that there were no significant differences among food safety knowledge and attitude based on the students’ demographic profiles. Lack of interest in cultivating positive attitude among the respondents and concern about response given limits the number of institutions from participating in this study. The results urged for more improvement in both knowledge and practice of food safety among students in public and private higher learning institutions towards recommended food safety standards.