[ad_1]
The covid-19 vaccination of teachers and school personnel was long demanded by the school community and it was with some satisfaction that the sector heard the Minister of Health admit that the measure is being considered.
Marta Temido said, in an interview with SIC, this Tuesday, that teachers and non-teaching staff can be included as a priority in the vaccination against covid-19, considering that schools are an “essential service.” “When we talk about essential services – and schools are, in some way, in our social focus, an essential service – it may make sense that adults who work in these places have a differentiated vaccination,” said the Minister of Health.
The unions agree, but warn of the importance of this decision being made quickly and that the first vaccination is carried out before a face-to-face return to school.
Vaccinate all teachers and school personnel. it would be ideal, he tells the PUBLIC the general secretary of the National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof). This universe is around 250 thousand people, he estimates. But if priorities have to be defined, Mário Nogueira has no doubts: “It must be those, teachers and employees, who never left school. I am referring to those who belong to the early intervention group, who ensure special education and the operation of host schools, among other exceptional cases, specifically support for students who do not have the Internet or a computer at home to to be able to follow the activities. academic. “These should not exceed ten thousand in total, calculates the leader of Fenprof.
Mário Nogueira hopes that the possibility admitted by Marta Temido is really “a certainty” and that in a few weeks the opposite will not be thought. “We do not want this to be like the works of Santa Engrácia, which never happen again,” he says, recalling that Fenprof formalized the priority vaccination proposal on three occasions with the Ministry of Education, but never received a response.
“This is one of the measures that we consider essential so that schools can open and remain open,” he said, adding that it would also be important to invest in tests and distance in classrooms, which he considers have failed in the first period.
The vaccination of teachers in the first phase is also being implemented in other countries, said Mário Nogueira, taking Spain, Chile, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom as examples. “And the vaccination of teachers is recommended by international entities such as the UN and Unicef,” he said.
Fátima Ferreira, from the Association of Licensed Teachers (ASPL), also saw the intention revealed by the Minister of Health as positive and recalled that, since November, the ASPL has been asking for the inclusion of teachers as priorities in the vaccination plan. Even in January, the ASPL came to defend that kindergarten teachers and teachers “are particularly exposed”, being “impossible to comply with the physical distance rules imposed by the General Directorate of Health, in the vast majority of educational centers, specifically in classrooms “.
Also faced with an eventual need to establish priorities, Fátima Ferreira believes that priority should be given to teachers and school officials who have kept schools open.
The general secretary of the National Federation of Education (FNE), João Dias da Silva, who, in addition to teachers, represents non-teaching staff, told Lusa that the union structure registers “positively the statement” of Marta Temido and that he I would like it to be “Definitive” and not simply “presented as a possibility”.
The president of the National Association of Directors of Public Groups and Schools (ANDAEP) also applauded this possibility, considering that it would be fundamental for the return to the face-to-face regime. “We want to go back to school healthy and safe, that’s why we are satisfied with what we heard from the Minister of Health,” Filinto Lima told Lusa.
The vaccination of teachers is already being carried out in countries such as Chile and Spain. Chile began vaccinating its school teachers against the coronavirus on February 15, according to the agency France Press, precisely with the aim of resuming face-to-face classes in March. In Spain, teachers also began to get vaccinated in recent weekends.
