LAHORE: The Punjab government on Monday announced closing the schools that fail to present vaccination certificates of their teachers and other staff after Aug 22.

The Punjab School Education Department has made coronavirus vaccination compulsory for the teachers, administration, and other staff members of all the public and private schools. The officials who do not get themselves vaccinated till Aug 22 will not be allowed to enter the premises.

Punjab Minister for School Education Murad Raas on Monday released a statement that all employers of schools should have to get vaccination certificates and submit them to their schools.

“We’ve established monitoring teams and they’ll conduct surprise raids in schools to check the vaccination certificate after Aug 22,” he said.

He said if a staff member was found unvaccinated, teams would close the school.

The minister said he was recording the video to convey this message to request schools to get their staff vaccinated and submit their certificates. “We will also take disciplinary action after finding anyone not vaccinated,” he said.

He said the order was for administrative officers and officials, teachers, staff members, and individuals.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2021