The head of the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, called
Tuesday for teachers to be among those given priority access to the
COVID-19 vaccines.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on children’s education
around the globe. Vaccinating teachers is a critical step towards
putting it back on track,” UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore said in a
statement.
Teachers should be “prioritized to receive the Covid-19 vaccine,
once frontline health personnel and high-risk populations are
vaccinated,” she said.
“This will help protect teachers from the virus, allow them to
teach in person, and ultimately keep schools open.”
According to UNICEF, at the peak of the first wave of the
pandemic at the end of April, “school closures disrupted the
learning of almost 90 percent of students worldwide.”
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Assuming that schools are not the main driver of community
transmission, UNICEF said in its statement that unfortunately,
classes currently remain closed for “nearly one in five
schoolchildren globally — or 320 million children.”
We must “do everything in our power to safeguard the future of
the next generation. This begins by safeguarding those responsible
for opening that future up for them,” Fore said.
“The consequences of extended, missed or impaired education are
steep, especially for the most marginalized. The longer children
remain out of school, the less likely they are to return, and the
more difficult it is for their parents to resume work,” she
said.
Read more https://swordpress.com.ng/2020/12/15/teachers-should-receive-vaccine-priority-unicef/