Yong, who is also Wanita MCA Sabah chairman, said immunising early childhood educators and those dealing with special needs students must be prioritised due to the teaching style required to cater to such children.

“These children are either far too young, or are not capable of properly understanding SOPs, personal hygiene, or social distancing. The nature of the job requires teachers to be in close proximity most of the time.

“Unlike schools, preschools cannot effectively teach via home learning (PdPR) so the vaccination of teachers should be a prerequisite before reopening preschools and special education institutes,” she said in a statement today.

As of yesterday, education minister Radzi Jidin said over 70,000 teachers had received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose, a fraction of the half a million listed as Phase 2 vaccine recipients under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme.

Yong added that “much work still has to be done” in order to reach the 500,000 teacher target previously laid out by coordinating minister of the vaccine roll-out, Khairy Jamaluddin.

“Ideally, it would be preferable that all 500,000 teachers receive the second dose before schools reopen to prevent transmission between students and teachers.”

She urged the government to expedite the vaccinations of teachers more broadly in order to achieve this, particularly with the uptick in the number of children being infected with and dying from Covid-19 of late.

Last Thursday, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said as of May this year, three children had already died as a result of the virus, matching the total recorded for the whole of last year.

“Even though teachers may not be formally recognised as frontliners, they spend up to six hours or more each day with children. The contribution of teachers has never been disputed, and we should not let them down now,” Yong said.