The Australian education minister has told parents they shouldn’t feel guilty about sending their children to school, as the Victorian government launched term two with a plea for families to stay at home and undertake remote learning wherever possible.
The mixed messages come ahead of another meeting of the national cabinet on Thursday, when leaders are expected to discuss further steps to safeguard the health and safety of teachers.
Throughout the coronavirus crisis, the Australian government has maintained that its health advice is that children are at low risk from attending school, although it has conceded there are issues to ensure the safety of teachers, particularly in higher risk groups such as those of advanced age and with underlying medical conditions.
Victorian state schools are the first to resume after the Easter holidays, following a pupil-free day on Tuesday. The state government has urged parents to keep their children at home and undertake the new system of online, remote learning wherever possible.
Schools will resume in other states and territories over the next two weeks. Many jurisdictions are opting to provide remote and online learning, with on-site instruction still available for those who need it.
“If you can have your kids educated at home, that’s exactly what you must do,” the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, said on Wednesday.
Andrews added that every Victorian government school was open for those who were unable to learn at home – including vulnerable children, those with special needs, or those whose parents were working. But he said he was grateful to families who were keeping their children at home.
“That is essential to avoiding the spread of this virus,” Andrews told reporters in Melbourne.
“If you think about it, common sense simply dictates if you’ve got a million kids getting to and from school, a full complement of teachers, parents moving around the community, dropping kids off, picking them up – that is not at all consistent with social distancing rules.”
The federal government has made no secret of its desire for schools to resume normal instruction as quickly as possible and has emphasised that many frontline workers need to be able to send their children to class.
In a video message on Wednesday, Scott Morrison sought to reach out to teachers, saying students and families were relying on them more than ever.
“I want teachers to know from me, both as a parent and as a prime minister, just how appreciated you are and how important the job is that you’re doing right now, and how much you are needed,” Morrison said.
Warning that the education of our children “hangs in the balance”, the prime minister said many students would continue distance learning, but some did not have this choice, particularly for families who were disadvantaged and on lower incomes.
“It is even more essential for those vulnerable students who we know won’t get an education at home,” Morrison said.
“These children need you for our schools to remain open. They need you as our great teachers, more than ever. We cannot allow a situation where parents are forced to choose between putting food on the table through their employment to support their kids and their kids’ education.”
The federal education minister, Dan Tehan, backed up this message, saying the government had “great concerns” about vulnerable children suffering as a result of the pandemic.
Tehan said, for example, that a family with three or four children at home but just one computer would face a “very tough” situation undertaking remote learning. Regional and rural settings were another challenge.
“Can I say, too, to all those parents who are out there working: please do not feel guilty about sending your students to school,” Tehan said during a media conference in Canberra.
“You are playing a vital role in helping our economy, helping our society get through this. You are playing a vital role in us dealing with this pandemic, so we want you to be able to safely know that your children are getting the education that they want at school, because school’s open for you, while you’re working.”
Meredith Peace, the president of the Australian Education Union’s Victorian branch, said her members felt that the official messaging around schools had been confusing.
Speaking to the ABC, she said public messages about the importance of physical distancing and staying at home contrasted with Morrison’s apparent plea for teachers to be at school.
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Peace said teachers, principals and support staff throughout Victoria were working hard to continue to educate students, whether they were at home or school. She said she had heard early reports of a small number of students attending school in person on Wednesday.
But Peace called on authorities to resolve the issue of the safety of staff in schools, as physical distancing was impossible in settings when 25 to 30 children were together with a teacher in a classroom. “We need that issue addressed if we’re going to have all of our students and staff return to schools,” Peace said.
The New South Wales Teachers Federation described the current arrangements as “emergency learning”. Its president, Angelo Gavrielatos, argued that as health restrictions begin to be eased, the return to regular schooling should be carried out in stages, starting with kindergarten and year 12.
The nation’s deputy chief medical officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth, told reporters the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee continued to view schools as safe places because of the low rates of transmission.
He confirmed the body was giving advice to the national cabinet on how to make schools safer for teachers and staff, signalling this was unlikely to include providing them with masks.
But the Victorian chief health officer, Brett Sutton, tweeted that he had advised the Victorian government to switch to remote learning for term two to reduce risks.
This is because having around a million children and their parents in closer contact with each other, teachers and other support staff has the potential to increase cases of coronavirus not just in schools but across the community. 2/3
— Chief Health Officer, Victoria (@VictorianCHO) April 15, 2020
