By Nur Ashikin Louis
KUCHING, Oct 26: The Ministry of Education (MOE) will look into the impact of unvaccinated teachers on the operation of schools before taking any immediate action including transfers.
Its minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin said the ministry is currently looking into the details of data on unvaccinated teachers after the Public Service Department (JPA) announced that it is mandatory for all civil servants including teachers to be vaccinated before Nov 1, 2021.
“In certain context, if (the issue of unvaccinated teachers) has a large impact (on schooling operations) then transfers of teachers will be expedited especially for special needs students. This is because teachers of special needs students must be with them physically as their nature of work.
“We also want to make sure that the operation of the school is not affected due to several unvaccinated teachers especially involving those who teach children with special needs,” he told reporters during his visit to SMK Bandar Samariang in Petra Jaya, Kuching today.
He added that after JPA’s announcement, many teachers had proceeded to get their first Covid-19 vaccine dose.
He also explained that the basic principle is that unvaccinated teachers are not allowed to teach students face-to-face.
“This means the teachers who are not vaccinated will be asked to do other work but it is not the same especially in contexts involving children with special needs and pre-school students,” he added.
At the same time, Dr Radzi also stated that in general, almost 80 per cent of students have received their first vaccine dose with several States achieving 90 per cent of first dose vaccination for students.
He also said a large number of Form 5 and Form 6 students nationwide have also completed their vaccinations, adding that MOE is in the process of monitoring the finalised data on student vaccinations.
“This will enable the students from these groups to return to schools without (undergoing) rotation system. We will announce it in the near future once vaccination data has been updated,” he said. – DayakDaily
