Mhaule made this plea on Tuesday during her visit to a number of schools in the Ehlanzeni District. Her visit began on Monday where she visited local schools as part her Covid-19 complaint monitoring programme.
“If we kill teachers, who will educate our children and the nation? I would like to appeal to all educators and support staff working in our schools to drop everything else and go and get vaccinated.
“They must not fear anything, because like I said before, there’s no government who would want to kill its citizens, especially teachers. If we kill them, we are killing the country. So I want to urge all our teachers to get the jab today,” said Mhaule appealing to teachers as the vaccination of educators officially begins today (Wednesday).
READ: Vaccine roll-out phase for education sector under way
When briefing the media on Saturday, the Department of Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, said the vaccination of educators countrywide is expected to conclude by Thursday July 8.
“We have about 582 000 persons to be vaccinated over 10 to 14 days. Vaccination remains voluntary, but highly recommended so that everybody can be protected. “We need to work extremely hard and around the clock to vaccinate as many people as possible in our sector. And in order for us to successfully complete this programme, we will need to keep schools open,” said Motshekga.
The educational sector was initially promised half of the vaccines but both President Cyril Ramaphosa and the acting health minister, Mamoloko KubayiNgubane, announced that provisions have been made to make the vaccine available for all educators and support staff.
READ: Teachers, staff urged to be at school ahead of jabs
“We want our teachers to live and continue to educate our children so that the future of this country is at the hands of an educated nation,” added Mhaule. It was initially suggested that only teachers above 40 years would receive the vaccine, but now this has changed as it will be administered to everyone. Mhaule pleaded with the public to refrain from spreading unfounded rumours about the vaccine, arguing that this creates unnecessary panic and fear.
“We really need to stop these myths going around. There is nothing wrong with the vaccine. I have personally been vaccinated and I do not suffer from any aftereffects,” said Mhaule.
Mpumalanga will be allocated 94 vaccination stations to administer a minimum of 3 760 jabs per day. The province is looking at using eight days to vaccinate all its teachers and support staff.
