From Center to States: Give at least one dose of vaccine to all teachers, employees in September

Union School Education Secretary Anita Karwal on Tuesday held a meeting through video conferencing on school safety and asked health and education officials in the states to prepare a district-level roadmap to achieve the results. The move comes after most states reopened physical schools in a staggered manner and the central government has promised to supply 20 million more doses of the vaccine in addition to the state quota.

“During the discussion the Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy (DOSEL) advised all the States and Union Territories to complete the first dose of vaccination for all teaching and non-teaching staff during the month of September 2021 and those teaching and “The teaching staff who have already received the first dose should be strictly followed for the second dose,” a spokesman for the non-education ministry said.

Further, the Secretary advised the Health and Education Secretaries of all the States and Union Territories to jointly prepare a road map at the district level for vaccination of all teaching and non-teaching staff. The Ministry’s spokesperson said that the Department of School Education and Literacy is also receiving information on immunization of teachers from the States and Union Territories through the tracker on a weekly basis.

The move comes a week after the Union Ministry of Health and Education announced to supply 20 million more doses of COVID-19 vaccines for August in addition to the states’ quota.

Officials from both the ministries said the move would facilitate the reopening of physical schools by providing a safe environment for both teachers and students. The states are gradually allowing the opening of schools for classes IX to XII. Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said last week that the teachers’ vaccination drive would help the sector recover, which was severely affected since mid-March 2020.

Schools and colleges were allowed to reopen in phases by Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat and Punjab. Schools in Delhi are reopening in a staggered manner from 1 September.

There are at least 9.4 million school teachers and several lakh non-teaching workers in India. Though the Center did not declare teachers as frontline workers, some states vaccinated teachers on a priority basis in view of their role in the resumption of physical classes.

Even UNESCO urged countries to give priority to teachers in their vaccination campaign. “While protecting teachers is essential to safely reopening schools, the first phase of immunization efforts has prioritized teachers for just 21- 18 million primary and secondary teachers in 197 countries. Another 37 countries have included teachers as a priority group for the second phase of vaccination,” the UN body said earlier this year.