SA teachers will need to get third Covid vaccination, or face restrictions next term

Vaccination rules for SA teachers will return from next term and those without the third jab will have to follow strict department restrictions.

Teachers will need to be vaccinated to work in class without restrictions, under official new rules from next term.

Police Commissioner Grant Stevens this month scrapped education mandates that had banned unvaccinated teachers and staff from schools.

But new Education Department rules to launch from term two will require staff to have a third booster jab to work without restrictions.

Department chief Martin Westwell said unvaccinated staff were “welcome back into the workplace but with a few extra precautions”.

A department survey of more than 4100 teachers and staff, which helped underwrite the rules, found almost 60 per cent did not support allowing unvaccinated workers back.

Of those, a third of respondents said vaccination “should be mandated for everyone”.

Almost three quarters of those surveyed supported additional anti-jab measures.

Under the new rules, all unvaccinated staff must wear a surgical mask – regardless of any new changes to coverings likely to be introduced next week – and return a negative rapid antigen home test each day before work. Taxpayers will provide RATs.

Mr Westwell said anti-vax staff, contractors and service providers are banned at high-risk areas due to student “vulnerability”.

“These include Aboriginal/Anangu schools, special schools, disability units, hospital school, and they won’t be able to work 1:1 with students with a medical vulnerability in a mainstream setting,” he said.

He said officials will help find work in other areas for those in high-risk locations.

The rules, based on SA Health advice and workforce vaccinations, will be reviewed.

The lifting of education directions, imposed in November last year under SA’s Emergency Declaration, has allowed 81 no-jab teachers, and 121 other staff, back on site from a workforce of 31,215.

Mr Stevens, the state co-ordinator, has scrapped passenger transport rules for bus, train, taxi, ride-share or chauffeur drivers.

Professor Nicola Spurrier and Police Commissioner Grant Stevens address the media announcing changes to the close contact rule. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

SA Health said its mandates were under review.

“We have a duty of care to ensure the safety of our staff, patients, clients and consumers, and are consulting with staff on an interim (policy) for when the emergency … directions are lifted,” a spokeswoman said.

“This is in addition to, not replacing, the overall requirement for staff vaccination in health care settings, which is based on health advice and (is) nationally consistent.”

Mandates still exist for aged-care and disability support workers, firefighters and well as forensic science staff.

Police mandates went last month. Authorities say businesses can impose jab rules.

Law Society president Justin Stewart-Rattray said employers were likely within their legal rights to impose mandates to reduce Covid and keep workers safe but said consultation was “crucial”: “Ultimately, it comes down to the principle of reasonableness.”

The state’s Covid chiefs will decide on Tuesday if school masks can go in Term 2.

Authorities on Friday announced week-long close contact isolation will be scrapped from this Saturday.

An extra four Covid patients have died amid a sharp fall in daily cases and hospital rates, SA Health said Saturday.