New Delhi: As India gears up for its Covid-19 vaccination drive across the country beginning Saturday, the Narendra Modi government has sought the support of educational institutions to create awareness about the programme.
The government wants students and faculty members to dispel misinformation against the Covid vaccine, and provide basic information about the vaccination plan.
In a circular sent to all higher education institutions Wednesday, the University Grants Commission (UGC) asked colleges and universities to help the government in raising awareness.
Letter from health secretary
With its circular, the UGC also attached a letter from Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, seeking support for the campaign. Bhushan sent the letter to the Ministry of Education on 5 January.
“In the face of such a swift evolving scenario of vaccine development and rollout, one of the challenges is to ensure that over 1.3 billion people in India receive factually correct and prompt information and updates of vaccine benefits and rollout progress,” said his letter.
“It is critical to build public confidence regarding vaccine safety and address fears over any adverse events and at the same time to continue stress on strict public adherence to Covid appropriate behaviour. We will need to actively collaborate towards building such an environment of universal vaccine acceptability and key will be effective communication action plan for proactive dissemination at all levels (state, district, block, village),” the letter read.
“Ministry of Education has collaborated with MoHFW as an equal partner hitherto and specially during the outbreak of Covid-19. I would request you to kindly support the campaign rollout with support from university networks and online talk platforms as well as leverage large footfalls,” it added.
Giving a reference to the health secretary’s letter, UGC Secretary Rajnish Jain requested “personal intervention” from Vice Chancellors of all universities and principals of all colleges for “successful implementation of the vaccine rollout programme”.
In the first phase of vaccination, the Modi government will inoculate 3 crore healthcare and frontline workers. It will then vaccinate 27 crore people who are aged 50 or above, or those who have comorbidities.
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