The Zimbabwe Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (ZCPSTU)’s education sector affiliated unions have embarked on a campaign to sensitize its members on the importance of getting vaccinated as part of the unions’ efforts to curb the effects of the pandemic.
The development comes in the wake of widespread misconceptions and mistrust of the vaccines leading negative notions.
In an interview with 263Chat, Secretary for the joint unions, Charles Chinosengwa said vaccination should be a priority for all teachers since prevention is better than cure.
“As ZCPSTU we are encouraging all our members to vaccination as first priority, prevention is better than cure. Most of our leadership are COVID-19 survivors because we all got fully vaccinated both our first and second jabs,” said Chinosengwa.
Despite schools opening having been further delayed by the increase in COVID-19 cases, observers say teacher vaccination should be sped up.
The union is campaigning for voluntary vaccination as opposed to compulsory vaccination of teachers which has is advocated for in some quarters.
“We will not allow government to force members to get vaccinated but we are educating fellow teachers on advantages of been vaccinated,”
“We are happy with the number of members who received their first and second jabs,” he added.
The unions taking part in this campaign includes ZIMTA, ZINEU, ZRTU ZDTU, COLAZ, ZINATU, ZINUSH and TUZ.
The Unions have been moving around communities donating masks and educating members on vaccination.
This comes after some teachers have reportedly succumbed to Covid-19 including ZIMTA vice president Thomas Mzondo who passed on recently.
