The Department of Education (DepEd) welcomed the latest move of the administration to prioritize basic education frontliners in its coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination program.
DepEd, in a statement issued Friday, April 16, thanked the President and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) for approving the appeal of Secretary Leonor Briones to “finally include basic education frontliners” in the A4 priority category of the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan.
“As reiterated by the President, vaccination is a key component of any roadmap to the resumption of face-to-face classes,” DepEd said. “With the adjustment of vaccine prioritization (from B1 to A4) for basic education frontliners, we can speed up the rollout of vaccines among our teachers,” it added.
Following this development, DepEd also reiterated its commitment to “continuously protect the health and safety of our teachers, learners and non-teaching staff, and prioritize their welfare at this critical time.”
In March, an official of the department said that while getting a COVID-19 jab is not compulsory for teachers, “they also have a moral obligation to the society.”
As stated in the IATF-EID in a Resolution No. 110 series of 2021 issued April 15 under A4.11, “frontline personnel in basic education and higher education institutions and agencies” are now included in the Priority Group A4.
In a separate statement, CHED Chairman J. Prospero E. De Vera III also welcomed the move to upgrade the classification of personnel in higher education institutions from B1 to A4. This, he noted, recognizes the “valuable and critical role of our higher education personnel as ‘frontliners’.