Schools are preparing to get their students vaccinated against Covid following the announcement that children aged between 15 and 18 will be eligible for the jab from January 3.
Many schools are making a list of eligible students — the ones who are born in 2007 or before.
Some schools plan to organise vaccine camps on their premises in collaboration with hospitals, while some will take care of registration and other formalities to ease the process for parents.
The cost of the jabs will have to be borne by parents, the schools said.
Most schools have gone into winter recess and will reopen in January. The authorities are working out the modalities so the vaccination camps can be organised soon after classes resume.
“We will send an intimation to parents after we have worked out the details. We intend to start the vaccination drive from the first day as mentioned by the government (January 3),” said Krishna Damani, trustee, South Point.
“If we organise vaccination camps in school, parents will not have to take their children to health centres. Some of the parents fear their children will be exposed to the virus (if they visit health centres).”
Since next year’s board exams of classes X and XII will be held in the offline mode, private and government schools will insist parents get their children vaccinated.
“We want all eligible children to get vaccinated so when they come to school they have protection and also do not spread the disease,” said Seema Sapru, principal of The Heritage School.
Indus Valley World School is “in conversation with hospitals” and will send a form to parents once the schedule is ready.
Schools like The Heritage and La Martiniere have estimated they will have about 1,000 students eligible for vaccination. At South Point, the count could touch 3,000.
“We will organise the camps in collaboration with a hospital (Belle Vue Clinic) and will soon send them details such as the number of students. It is for Belle Vue to decide where they want to organise the camp…” said Supriyo Dhar, secretary of the La Martiniere schools.
St Augustine’s Day School in Barrackpore and Shyamnagar will hold camps on their campuses.
“We had held camps for our students who were above 18. Now we will extend the same facility (to those between 15 and 18). The school will do the registration on the portal, which will make the process hassle-free for parents,” said Janet Gasper Chowdhury, president of St Augustine’s Education Society, which runs the two schools.
At Sanskrit Collegiate School, students will be given fresh identity cards containing the unique identification number that the school education department portal generates for each student.
“The identity cards do not have the unique identification number and since that number contains detailed information about the student, it is expected to help at the time of vaccination,” said headmaster Debabrata Mukherjee.
