Unvaccinated teachers to be banned from entering education facilities

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Teachers who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19, do not have a certificate of contraindication to vaccination or a certificate of immunity, will not be admitted to educational institutions, Trend has reported, quoting the adviser to the education minister, Rustam Aghayev. 

He noted that the data on the number of teachers who submitted a certificate of contraindications to vaccination changes daily.

Moreover, Aghayev added that there is no decision yet on the issue of the salaries of teachers who will be admitted to the educational institutions.

Furthermore, speaking about the situations when parents can let their children miss school, Aghayev underlined that it can be done in two cases only- if they live in an area with a high level of coronavirus infection or if there is a COVID-19 or SARS patient in the family.

He added that it is necessary to inform the school management about this issue.

Earlier, the country's education minister underlined that the main condition for the start of the new academic year is the vaccination of education workers. So far, already 80 percent of education workers have been vaccinated.

Azerbaijan is resuming the full-time education process starting from September 22. Thus, the full-time education process in schools for students of 1-4 grades will resume on September 22, and for 5-11 grades on September 29. In addition, the education in universities will also resume on September 29. It was stated that the reason why full-time classes in Azerbaijani educational institutions will start a week later is that this would allow more people to be vaccinated against coronavirus during the additional week.

The education process in  Azerbaijan was suspended by the Cabinet of Ministers' decision on March 2, 2020, to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection in educational institutions. Tele-lessons were organized for schoolchildren, and the Virtual School project was launched on April 2. Given the epidemiological situation, classes were later organized both online and in-person.

Azerbaijan confirmed its first COVID-19 case on February 28, 2020. The country introduced a special quarantine regime on March 25 and took a number of measures to fight COVID-19 in the country.

The quarantine regime in Azerbaijan was extended until 0600 (GMT +4) November 1.