Over 93% of school teachers and 87% of non-teaching staff have been vaccinated against COVID-19, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan told the Lok Sabha on Monday, in response to a question from Telegu Desam MP Jayadev Galla.
Haryana is the biggest laggard, with a third of its non-teaching staff and more than one in five teachers yet to receive the vaccine.
With schools having reopened partially or fully in most States, and the looming worries over the Omicron variant, the Education Ministry has been maintaining a weekly tracker on vaccination of all the adults whom students interact with as they return to physical classes. More than two crore additional vaccines were allocated to States at the end of August for school staff on a priority basis, as the Indian Council of Medical Research had recommended that it is as important for bus drivers and other support staff to be protected as the teachers are.
The State-wise tracker showed that the Union Territories of Ladakh, Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Tripura have achieved 100% vaccination among all school staff, both teaching and non-teaching. Maharashtra says it has vaccinated all its teachers as well, along with 98.5% of non-teaching staff.
Meghalaya, on the other hand, has vaccinated 100% of its non-teaching staff, while 9% of teachers are yet to be vaccinated.
However, Haryana has vaccinated only 68% of non-teaching staff and 79% of teachers. Manipur and Nagaland are the other two States with a school staff vaccination rate which is still below 80%.
