Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:29 pm on 13 January 2021.
Thank you, Vikki. I would like to place on record my immense gratitude and thanks to those working in our PRU units, as you quite rightly say, working alongside some of our most vulnerable learners. That is why we have asked local authorities at this time, where at all possible, to continue to provide PRU education, and I'm grateful for those staff that are doing that on a daily basis. Could I reinforce the clarification? All staff, whether they are in a special school, a mainstream school, or indeed a further education college that are involved in the intimate care of pupils will be classed as social care staff. The tasks that they are involved in doing, if they were carrying those out as part of a domiciliary care package, or indeed as a care package, for instance, in a care home, they would be classed as social care staff. And it is those staff that will be eligible for the vaccine in this first round. We continue to discuss with the other parts of the United Kingdom, and with scientists, around when the further education workforce will become eligible for a vaccine. And I am very keen that that should happen as soon as possible. That's all staff that are keeping education going—so that's those working in our schools and those that are taking our children to school. And once the first phase of the vaccination process is completed, I hope we can move to a situation where we will receive advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation about how we can protect other front-line workers.