THE Education Ministry (MOE) should not reassign the role of teachers even if they are not vaccinated against Covid-19, the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) said.

NUTP secretary-general Wang Heng Suan told The Malaysian Insight it was not right for MOE to redesignate teachers to other duties when schools reopen next month and urged the ministry to find ways to accommodate unvaccinated teachers to conduct lessons.

“In our (union) opinion, teachers must teach because by law that is the role of the teachers.

“Although there are some 2,500 teachers who have refused to get vaccinated, they should be allowed to teach, not physically, but in some other form… online, for instance.

“The ministry has to see how to make this happen. There should be ways that they could go about. They cannot tell teachers not to teach. It is against our code of ethics,” Wang said.

Education Minister Mohd Radzi Md Jidin had said there were 2,500 teachers who have yet to get vaccinated and that they would be given other duties when schools reopen on October 3, as they would not be allowed to teach face-to-face.

Radzi said that of the 400,000 teachers in the country, 96.7% had received at least one shot while 85.26% had completed both doses of the vaccine.

Schools will reopen in stages from October 3 onwards, starting with exam-year students in Forms 5 and 6.

Schools in phase 2 states under the national recovery plan would be allowed to open for exam-year students, while schools in phase 3 could open in full. However, schools in phase 1 states are not allowed to open.

Wang said while other assignments can be made secondary, it would not be fair for the ministry to assign teachers other tasks.

“Other works can be secondary. Their primary job is to teach. If they are not allowed to teach, then they are not ‘teachers’ anymore.

“There are teachers doing clerical work but that is not their main duty. It is not fair to pull them out from doing their main duty, which is to teach,” he said.

Given that not all schools would reopen simultaneously, he said the ministry could come up with some arrangements for the teachers to take lessons rather than assigning them other duties.

Asked if the ministry could potentially dismiss a public school teacher for rejecting vaccination, Wang said that would not be possible as vaccination against Covid-19 is not mandatory by law.

“I don’t think the ministry can sack them for not being vaccinated. As I know, there is no law to force anyone to get vaccinated.

“Is there any law to force Malaysian citizens to take the vaccine? No. If there is no law, there is no way,” he said.

Wang said the ministry would have to follow proper procedures if they were to take any action against teachers in this case, but they cannot be dismissed for not taking the vaccine.

Last week, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said he may consider making vaccination against Covid-19 mandatory in order to address the issue of anti-vaxxers.

Khairy warned he was not far from proposing a mandate to make vaccination compulsory to the cabinet. – September 9, 2021.