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Covid-19

HIGHER HEALTH’s Efforts to curb the Novel Corona Virus – COVID 19 in the Post School Education and Training (PSET) Sector The Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Dr Blade Nzimande, has tasked HIGHER HEALTH to ensure that they work with every public university and TVET college within the PSET to deal with COVID-19.

The Mandate

The Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Dr Blade Nzimande, has tasked HIGHER HEALTH to ensure that they work with every public university and TVET college within the PSET to deal with COVID-19. In response to this mandate, HIGHER HEALTH had set in motion the following: 

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Post School Education and Training Guidelines on COVID-19

HIGHER HEALTH coordinated the development of national guidelines for the post schooling education and training sector on the COVID-19 outbreak. The draft guidelines had been developed and underwent a review process to align the draft with the President’s State of the Nation address on COVID-19, on 15 March 2020, as well as the directives taken by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology in consultation with the sector and stakeholders. The review process was finalised and the final guidelines were shared with the sector.
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HIGHER HEALTH COVID-19 Communication Campaign

HIGHER HEALTH embarked on a communication campaign that involved the development of information, education, health promotion materials (such as pamphlets and posters), protocols and health alerts, in collaboration with WHO, NICD and DOH, which was distributed via our extensive peer-to-peer networks across our campuses and via social media. HIGHER HEALTH also developed radio content on COVID-19 awareness that was rolled out, through our associated 20 campus and community radio stations that are part of HIGHER HEALTH’s flagship Future Beats multi-media programme.
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Training and Capacity Development Workshop for All Higher Education Health Care Workers and Staff on COVID-19

Higher Health in partnership with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the Department of Health had tailormade the training module specifically for the Post Schooling sector in consideration of the unique environment, demands and challenges of each institution.

Maintaining COVID-19 and epidemic preparedness

The mass uptake of vaccines that hugely reduced COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths, together with progressively mild variants of the virus, made it possible to return to full-scale on-campus teaching and learning in 2022. But this did not mean that the PSET sector could let its guard down. COVID-19 was still with us – as the infection spike in May and June confirmed – and lecture halls, classrooms, canteens, and residences were environments where even the milder variants could prove extremely disruptive unless precautions were maintained.

HIGHER HEALTH continues to drive capacity building for infection control among institutional staff and student volunteers. This included keeping management and academic staff abreast of the evolving pandemic and resulting changes in regulations.

Vaccination

We encouraged institutions to continue to promote vaccination against COVID-19. Several universities had introduced vaccination mandates which required all students to provide proof of vaccination as a condition of registration for the 2022 academic year. Elsewhere, HIGHER HEALTH encouraged universities and colleges to promote vaccination positively.