Teachers ready to get jabbed

Boshielo received her jab at the Pietersburg Provincial Hospital on Friday morning, which was administered in the presence of the Health MEC, Dr Phophi Ramathuba, the Premier Chupu Mathabatha and the Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga.

The department has circulated its teachers’ vaccination plan to schools in the province in preparation for the two-day roll-out.

According to the document, the department estimates that 61 572 people inclusive of independent schools, teachers and support staff, will be vaccinated.

The department has received 38 400 doses of the Johnson&Johnson vaccine which was meant to be used for the first week of vaccinations.

Each vaccination site will operate on at least 10-16 vaccination stations to allow a minimum capacity of 500 vaccinations per site per day.

This is translated to a minimum of 14 500 vaccinations per day provincially, but the projections made estimate that the vaccination sites will be able to cater for more than this number.

“The department has been engaging with the Department of Health along with various stakeholders in the education sector on the plan. Task teams have been established in each of the schools that will be responsible for facilitating the vaccination programme.”

She says all employees of the department with Persal numbers will automatically be loaded unto the vaccination system and registered, and that only those who do not have Persal numbers will need to manually register through the task teams. This includes teachers employed by the School Governing Bodies, security guards, teacher assistants and others.

“The task teams will also need to coordinate the vaccinations of teachers on leave and those working from home due to comorbidities. They will coordinate those who have been vaccinated and those who still need to.”

According to Boshielo, individual schools were sent a document to fill in and return to the department where they need to indicate the vaccination site closest to them, and how many people will be vaccinated in order to allow the department to ensure an adequate number of vaccinations is available at the specific sites.

This form will also be used to indicate the teachers who have opted not to receive the vaccine.

She says the Independent Schools Association of South Africa is one of the stakeholders that were engaged on the vaccine rollout plan and the total number of procured vaccines will include teachers and staff from independent schools.

Boshielo clarified that teachers have been asked to bring along their medical aid cards.

“Teachers are subsidised by the department in terms of their medical aid.

In order to ensure that government can provide vaccinations for everyone, those who are medical aid members will be billed in order to allow those without any to be able to receive the vaccine for free.”

The department will communicate to individuals when they need to go to their chosen vaccination sites, and the vaccines will be administered between 08:00 and 16:30. Recipients need to arrive at the site by 14:00 the latest and no walk-ins will be allowed.

Polokwane Observer contacted 12 public schools in the city and most indicated that the procedures has been properly communicated and explained to them.

Most schools indicated that their teachers would be vaccinated at the Pietersburg Provincial Hospital as the only vaccination site in the city, while a few schools in Seshego indicated they would be vaccinated at the Seshego Hospital.

Two of the 12 schools contacted were still awaiting information at the time of going to print.

Unions in the province also weighed in on the matter:

John Teffo, Provincial Manager of the Public Servants Association (PSA) says they are disappointed that despite the increasing number of Covid-19 cases, the department has still not taken the decision to close schools.

He is, however, pleased that the teacher vaccinations will go ahead.

“We believe the vaccination of teachers should have happened some time in May already. This, noting that winter is here meaning that flue season has arrived. The vaccinations should have taken place before the third wave arrived.

As a result we feel that the department is not taking the lives of teachers, support staff and learners seriously, considering they have done nothing to fast track these vaccinations. The number of Covid-19 cases in schools has increased.”

Sowel Tjebane, Provincial Secretary for the South African Democratic Teacher’s Union (Sadtu) says they welcomed the move to have two weeks off the academic calendar reserved for the vaccinations.

Tjebane believes the current vaccination sites can be of use to vaccinate teachers, but also suggests that a few more sites should be opened in order to speed up process.

Ben Machipi, General Secretary of the Professional Educators Union (PEU) says to his understanding each school will be allocated a time slot when they would need to go for vaccinations, and academic activities would only be disrupted for a short time.

“The schools would then have to come up with a catch up time table in order to make up for the lost time. We have faith in the scientific knowledge that has led to the acquisition and use of the vaccine.

“We encourage teachers and support staff to go and get the vaccine which will allow them to work more freely.”