The Department of Basic Education is calling on all teachers and staff to be at school in order to prepare for the COVID-19 vaccination programme set to start on Wednesday.

In a statement on Monday, the department said the vaccination programme is an opportunity to normalise schooling and intensify the process of mitigating the impact of COVID-19.

At the weekend Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced that the vaccination of personnel in the sector would start officially on Wednesday following the arrival of an initial 300 000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

“In her address the Minister said all five official and recognised teacher unions in the sector were in full support of the vaccination program as part of the fight against COVID-19,” said the department.

The leadership of the teaching unions are themselves expected to get vaccinated this week.

School governing body associations have supported the vaccination programme and have committed to working closely with the department to ensure all targeted people receive the jab.

“For the next two weeks, we make the clarion call to our school communities to ‘drop all, and vaccinate!’ in order for us to successfully complete this program, we will need to keep schools open.”

Any disruptions, she said, “would be undesirable”.

“We need to work extremely hard and around the clock to vaccinate as many people as possible in our sector. Vaccinating does not mean that we need to stop adhering to the non-pharmaceutical health and safety protocols”.

The department has issued a circular to provinces to outline all the steps that must be taken before and during the vaccination process.

“Provincial education departments will also provide more details to district, circuit offices and schools on scheduling of the vaccination in all the sites,” said the department.

Source: South African Government News Agency