Perak exco says only 1,352 teachers yet to receive Covid-19 jab; state to vaccinate adolescents starting Sept

IPOH, Aug 30 — A total of 73,828 teachers in Perak have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the state legislative assembly was told today.

State Education, Higher Learning and Human Resources Committee Ahmad Saidi Mohamad Daud gave the breakdown as 36,238 involving primary school teachers and 37,590 secondary school teachers as of August 29.

“However, 1,352 teachers are still yet to be vaccinated,” he said in his winding-up speech.

Ahmad said the unvaccinated teachers included both those who had registered and were waiting for their vaccination appointments, as well as those who were unregistered.

For teachers from the Sijil Tinggi Agama Malaysia (STAM), vocational, Forms Five and Six groups, he said that 9,426 teachers out of 9,684 have been fully vaccinated.

“The balance 258 teachers are still yet to be vaccinated, yet to be registered and still waiting for vaccination appointment,” he said.

“However, the state education department will continue efforts to ensure that these teachers will receive the vaccine and if necessary, programmes such as counseling sessions, webinars and workshops on the management and importance of vaccines will be organised to achieve this goal,” he added.

Starting September, Ahmad Saidi said that students aged between 12 and 17 will be given priority for vaccination under the National Immunisation Programme in preparation for the reopening of the education sector.

“However, this plan depends on the supply of vaccines from the federal government and we will monitor in order to achieve herd immunity among students,” he said.

Ahmad Saidi also said a total 366,395 students out of 383,942 or 95.43 per cent have followed the Home-based Teaching and Learning (PdPR) programme through online, offline and a combination outside the school area (off-site).

“The number of students who followed the PdPR programme showed a significant decrease when compared to the analysis from January to March this year, where a total of 101,278 students could not follow the programme while the latest analysis until June 2021, shows that only 17,558 students who could not follow the PdPR programme.  

“This drastic decrease is due to the efforts of various parties, including state government, state education department, district education office, schools, teachers, parents and teacher’s association, parents and private sectors,” he said.

Separately, he also said that the unemployment rate in 2019 stood at 3.4 per cent, which involved 37,500 unemployed people.

“For 2020, there was an increase of 1.4 per cent as compared to 2019, with the unemployment rate at 4.8 per cent, involving 53,000 unemployed people.

“However, from these statistics, the rising trend of unemployment has started to decline in the first quarter of 2021 to 4.6 per cent which is 49,500 unemployed people when more industrial and business sectors were allowed to operate earlier this year,” he added.