Vaccination rate among higher education institution (HEI) personnel and tertiary students continue to scale up as the country welcomes a new year.
As of December 29, reports from HEIs all over the country show that 87.1% of HEI faculty and employees have been vaccinated.
This is a significant increase from the 72% vaccination rate at the start of the aggressive vaccination campaign in October 2021.
This means that out of the 293,058 teaching and non-teaching personnel all over the country, a total of 255,229 HEI personnel have been vaccinated.
CAR has the most number of vaccinated HEI personnel with 95.24%.
Some of the regions which have the most number of vaccinated HEI personnel are CAR with 95.24% or 7,940 out of the total 8,337 personnel; Region 3 with 94.08% or 24,831 out of 26,393; Region 2 with 93.78% or 8,604 out of 9,175 and Region 11 with 92.16% or 11,542 out of 12,524 HEI personnel.
The vaccination rate for students has also increased from 46% to now 59.7% with the aggressive school-based vaccination drive spearheaded by CHED in cooperation with the Department of Health (DOH), the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19, local government units (LGUs), and partner HEIs.
To date, out of the reported number of tertiary students or 4,115,988, a total of 2,456,667 have been vaccinated. From this number, 43.21% are fully vaccinated while 16.42% have at least received their first dose.
Some of the regions which have the most number of vaccinated students are Region 9 with 85.38% or 123,897 out of the total number of 145,113 students in the region; Region 3 with 81.12% or 321,946 out of 396,866 and CAR with 75.65% or 84,436 out of 111,617 students.
“The Commission is happy to report that in many regions of the country, the vaccination rate of our education frontliners have reached herd immunity levels.”
“The Commission is happy to report that in many regions of the country, the vaccination rate of our education frontliners have reached herd immunity levels ensuring not only their availability to join face-to-face classes but more importantly, they are helping protect their families and communities from the rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus,” CHED Chair Prospero de Vera said.
“I also commend all our CHED regional offices, HEIs, their partner LGUs, and DOH personnel for their dedicated partnership during the 3-day Bayanihan, Bakunahan: Ligtas, Lakas, Buong Pilipinas through their school-based vaccination sites and for mobilizing medical and nursing student-volunteers in vaccination sites all over the country,” de Vera added.
De Vera said that the efforts of CHED regional offices, HEIs and their partner LGUs will now expand to help education stakeholders get booster shots in the first quarter of 2022 to facilitate the expansion of face to face classes and be part of the national effort to combat any COVID variant that may enter the country.
