Teachers' Union Wants Face-to-Face Schools To Open Early 2022: Condition, Government Pursues Child Vaccination Until Year End Akhir

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Federation of Indonesian Teachers' Unions (FSGI) encourages the government to accelerate COVID-19 vaccinations for children under the age of 18, especially 12-17 years old, which is currently running.

Secretary General of FSGI Heru Purnomo asked the government to complete vaccination for school-age children for six months until the end of the year. Thus, face-to-face schools can be opened in early 2022.

"FSGI encourages vaccines for children aged 12-17 years in the next 6 months to be realized so that face-to-face schools can be held simultaneously in early 2022. At least 70 percent of the total number of students in the education unit have been vaccinated. Thus, group immunity in the unit has been vaccinated. education can be formed," said Heru in his statement, Sunday, July 11.

The government targets the vaccination target for children aged 12-17 years as many as 32.6 million people. Then, it takes 65.2 million doses of vaccine to inject a complete vaccination twice the dose per child.

Unfortunately, Heru said, currently children are still being vaccinated in certain areas, such as in DKI Jakarta, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), and Bali. In fact, currently the transmission of COVID-19 to children is starting to increase.

"The majority of regions have not yet fully implemented PTM, in fact many are still testing in limited quantities, but Indonesian children infected with COVID-19 account for 12.6 percent of the total cases and the child mortality rate due to covid in Indonesia is the highest in the world. children are infected from family clusters," he said.

Therefore, said Heru, acceleration of vaccination for children is needed to prepare for the opening of schools next year. On the other hand, Heru also encouraged the central government to make provisions related to face-to-face learning in educational units, both schools, madrasas and Islamic boarding schools at all levels of education.

"There must be a PTM permit given if 70 percent of the education unit residents have been vaccinated, both educators, education staff and students. Strict health protocols must still be applied in PTM in education units," he explained.

Heru also encouraged the central and regional governments to continue to require the obligation to fill out a face-to-face learning checklist on the Kemdikbudristek website and continue to make health protocols/SOPs for adapting new habits in education units.

"Even though 70 percent of school residents have been vaccinated, it does not mean that there is no COVID-19 transmission. So, keep applying the 5M health protocol to protect all school residents," he concluded.