SOME 800 students of Mabalacat City College (MCC) received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday, October 13, 2021, as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s instruction to make sure the general population is vaccinated starting October 15, with the increased volume of vaccines available in the country.
MCC President Michelle Ong said vaccinating the students is crucial because, amid the pandemic, they want them to be a strong force in the economic recovery, especially that it is the closest to Clark Freeport.
“The 800 vaccinees make up the second batch. Last month, we already vaccinated 400 on-the-job-trainee students. We are also currently retrofitting our campus because we want to launch our OJT bubble for our hotel and restaurant management program. We also want to start our limited face-to-face classes in February in time for the second semester,” she said.
Ong added that with the delivery of the vaccine shots that are coming from both the national and the City Government, they are eyeing to vaccinate the remainder of the 3,850 students this month.
The doors of MCC are open for any local college in Pampanga and even the Department of Education, she said, if ever they will be given a go signal to do their vaccination since MCC already has a system in place.
Economic structure
Commission on Higher Education (Ched) Chairperson J. Prospero De Vera III, for his part, said vaccinating eligible students is important as the government wants to slowly open up schools for a combination of online, offline and face-to-face (F2F) classes.
He said when there is a high level of vaccination, the assurance of an additional level of safety is there so that “we can now start to reopen our schools slowly.”
He said that could only be done successfully if the level of safety for everyone in the schools is increased among faculty, employees and students.
“This is the first leg of the caravan that we are doing to offer vaccination for students and we’re happy that the local governments and the universities are on board because we can only successfully vaccinate them if the local government helps and if the schools also help to bring the students for vaccination. We want to vaccinate everyone because that is the correct way to do things for us as a country to handle the pandemic,” he added.
He said that schools need to be revived because they are part of the economic structure of the local governments.
“The school has ancillary services, such as food and transportation, and thrives on so many businesses around it. When we slowly open them up, we also open up the businesses connected to the schools,” De Vera said.