DepEd tracks personnel's COVID-19 vaccination status in new app

MANILA, Philippines — Education officials on Thursday announced the launching of a COVID-19 vaccination tracker for public school teachers and support staff.

The agency said some 299,021 of its personnel had been inoculated with either first or second dose as of July 8. 

That would be 37.91% of the 788,839 teaching and non-teaching personnel qualified to receive the jabs. DepEd in June began vaccinating its employees. 

Some 62%, or 489,818, have yet to receive their jabs.

“We decided to create this platform to give our personnel and teachers a hassle-free and contactless way of handing out their vaccination status," said Secretary Leonor Briones in a statement.

The DepEd Mobile App allows teachers and staff to register their vaccination status remotely. It is downloadable in the App Store for iOS and on Google Play for Android users. 

Undersecretary for Administration Alain Pascua said the app would be able to consolidate vaccination reports across DepEd's divisions and regional offices. 

"Overall, this technology simplifies and lessens administrative tasks," he continued, "and minimizes inaccuracy and errors in data collection."

Pascua added that the data collection from the new DepEd app would be crucial in the government's policymaking to address challenges in its vaccination program. 

Classes in the Philippines would continue to be carried out remotely come September this year. 

President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly rejected pilot studies on limited in-person classes, with only a small portion of the population vaccinated so far, and due to the threat of the Delta variant of COVID-19. 

Government figures as of July 22 showed 5.23 million Filipinos have completed their two doses. That would amount to 7.47% of the government's goal of vaccination up to 70 million this year.