Higher education institutions personnel included in A4 vaccine priority list —CHED

Frontliners and personnel in public and private higher education institutions (HEIs) will be included in the A4 category for the priority list of the government's COVID-19 vaccination program, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said Thursday.

The new classification was approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) to allow HEI personnel to "receive submitted student requirements, compute grades, process clearances, and issue transcript of records, diplomas and other credentials this school year."

“CHED lauds the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) for recognizing the valuable and critical role of our higher education personnel as “frontliners" and upgrading their classification from B1 to A4,”  said CHED Chairman Prospero De Vera III in a press statement.

De Vera said personnel at college institutions need to be vaccinated immediately to make sure there will be no delays on processing of documents for students who will continue their studies as well as those who will finish their college education.

“If we don't vaccinate our education frontliners, we run the risk of students not being able to enroll next school year or having graduates who can't take their licensure examinations or are unable to look for employment because of missing credentials,” he said.

“HEI personnel who are required to report in our HEIs must be assured of protection so they can confidently provide essential education services to the more than 3 million students in higher education,” De Vera added.

The government's priority list for A4 category are as follows:

    A4.1 - Commuter transport (land, air, and sea), including logistics
    A4.2 - Public and private wet and dry market vendors; frontline workers in groceries, supermarkets, delivery services;
    A4.3 - Workers in manufacturing for food, beverage, medical and pharmaceutical products
    A4.4 - Frontline workers in food retail, including food service delivery
    A4.5 - Frontline workers in Financial Services in private and government
    A4.6 - Frontline workers in hotels and accommodation establishment
    A4.7 - Priests, pastors, rabbis, imams or such other religious leaders regardless of denomination
    A4.8 - Security guards/personnel assigned in the establishments, offices, agencies, and organizations identified in the list of priority industry/sectors
    A4.9 - Frontline workers in news media, both private and government
    A4.10 - Customer-facing personnel of telecoms, cable and internet service providers, electricity distribution, water distribution utilities
    A4.11 - Frontline personnel in basic education and higher education institutions and agencies
    A4.12 - Overseas Filipino Workers not classified above, and scheduled for deployment within two months
    A4.13 - Frontline workers in law/justice, security and social protection sectors
    A4.14 - Frontline government workers engaged in operation of government transport system, quarantine inspection, worker safety inspection and other activities indispensable to the COVID response
    A4.15 - Frontline government workers in charge of tax collection, assessment of businesses for incentives, election, national ID, data collection, personnel
    A4.16 - Diplomatic Community and Department of Foreign Affairs personnel in consular operations
    A4.17 - Department of Public Works and Highways personnel in charge of monitoring government infrastructure projects

Data from the Department of Health and National Task Force Against COVID-19 showed that the country rolled out 1,255,716 vaccine doses out of the more than 3 million doses delivered.—Consuelo Marquez/LDF, GMA News