Education Secretary Leonor Briones on Monday said teachers will assist the Department of Health (DOH) in educating the people on the “general aspects” of information about the national vaccination program.

In a virtual press briefing, Briones said teachers could not be tapped to help the actual inoculation process that can only be done by trained health workers.

“They (teachers) are trained to teach. They are not trained to inject. That is very dangerous to the patients,” Briones said in answering a query on whether teachers could be trained to help in the vaccination process in case the need arises.

Briones said the Department of Education (DepEd) may not even allow teachers to delve into details of different brands of vaccines which can only be explained by medical doctors.

She, however, expected the Health agency to give ample training to the teachers to equip them with enough general knowledge about the inoculation process.

Briones, who briefed Central Visayas media on current thrusts of DepEd amid the continuing fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), said her office is in constant coordination with the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) in the plan to utilize schools as vaccination centers.

“Perhaps, we will not allow schools to become venue for vaccination if they are currently used as quarantine centers. We have to protect the schoolchildren, the teachers and staff,” she said in Cebuano.

She said she is coordinating with National Task Force Against Covid-19 chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. on the plan to utilize learning spaces for the vaccination.

“They need spaces as waiting room aside from spaces as vaccination centers. Bigger spaces are really needed, especially that school clinics only have one room and not all clinics have waiting rooms,” she said in Cebuano, adding that classrooms that are far from isolation facilities may be used. (PNA)