Commission on Higher Education Chairman Prospero De Vera III lauded the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases for bumping up the vaccine classification for higher education personnel from B1 to A4.

He said that the move was a recognition of the critical role of HEI workers as frontliners too.

Frontliners in public and private higher education institutions were included in the A4 category along with other essential workers.

The new classification was approved by the IATF on Thursday. The commission said that giving vaccine priority to HEIs would enable their personnel to continue receiving student requirements, compute grades, process clearances, and issue transcript of records, diplomas and other credentials this school year.

De Vera stressed that HEI personnel need to be prioritized since the current semester is about to end and there should be no delay in the processing of the documents of students who will continue their studies or will graduate.

“If we don’t vaccinate our education frontliners, we run the risk of students not being able to enroll next school year or having graduates who can’t take their licensure examinations or are unable to look for employment because of missing credentials,” he said.

“HEI personnel who are required to report in our HEIs must be assured of protection so they can confidently provide essential education services to the more than 3 million students in higher education,” De Vera added.

The country started inoculating medical frontliners in March this year. It is now vaccinating senior citizens and persons with comorbidities. Workers in essential sectors are next in line.