Teachers must not be forced to take COVID-19 vaccine
GOVERNMENT recently announced through the Public Service Commission and Information ministry the policy of mandatory vaccination through the Public Health Amendment Order, 2021 number 35, where it states that; every member of the public service shall be fully vaccinated and any member: (i) not so vaccinated shall be barred from the workplace after October 15, and not be paid, while he or she is so barred: (ii) who refuses to be fully vaccinated shall be subject to disciplinary proceedings on the basis that he or she failed to obey a lawful instruction.
The statutory instrument mentioned above is the major reason why the Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (Artuz) has come up with October 8 as the special day for an EDUPROTEST campaign, the significance of October 8 will be defined in the content within the bulletin.
Artuz encourages all its members and the citizens at large to get vaccinated and collectively eradicate the threat posed by COVID-19. However, it is the manner in which our governing authorities have chosen to implement vaccination that has created a bone of contention, especially in the public service, where they have chosen to flagrantly violate the law by forcing people against their will to get vaccinated and in the same vein government has also chosen to violate civil servants’ labour rights when no legal framework compels civil servants to be vaccinated against their will.
Pronouncements of mandatory vaccination, no matter the reasons behind them, are a product of autocracy and selfishness on the part of the elite and Artuz has sought to defy such an act and compel the government to reverse this diabolic and retrogressive policy.
People might be wondering why October 8 when we have between now and 15 October which the government marked as the due date for vaccination, annually and globally teachers commemorate World Teachers’ Day on October 5.
This years’ commemorations will be held under the theme Teachers at the Heart of Education Recovery, then 10 days after commemorating World Teachers Day, government will be firing all unvaccinated teachers, this is a big threat to the recovery agenda of education especially if one is to take into perspective the level of rot in the education sector in Zimbabwe marred by years of gross mismanagement, lack of priority, corruption and now the disturbance brought about by COVID-19.