13 Oct 2021

Covid-19: Education Minister on unvaccinated teachers

From Morning Report, 8:17 am on 13 October 2021

Education Minister Chris Hipkins says more information will be going to schools about the vaccine mandate.

School staff dealing with children and students have to be fully jabbed by the first of January. The Principals Federation told Morning Report it was already seeing resignations.

Hipkins, who is also Covid-19 Response Minister, told Morning Report it's not necessarily no jab, no job, and discussions could be had about roles staff could have without breaching the rules.

"There won't be a big number of roles, but we'll be working with the education sector, with the teaching community.

"One of the reasons that people refuse to be vaccinated, for example, is that they don't have good information, they've been told information that's incorrect, so we'll be working with the sector to make sure that really good information is given to teachers so that if the a turning down a vaccination, they're turning it down for a good reason."

Hipkins said there are exemptions for those unable to be vaccinated on medical grounds, but there are very few people that cannot have the vaccine.