David Penberthy: Unions have missed the mark in keeping kids home from school over COVID-19
The Australian Education Union risks squandering the goodwill that now exists towards teachers if it continues to rubbish the medical advice and push for school closures, writes David Penberthy.
Rendezview
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rendezview. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The #keepthemhome campaign by the Australian Education Union would have made reasonable sense had it been launched on March 21. It makes no sense being launched as it was three days ago on April 21.
On March 21 the rate of COVID-19 infections in Australia was increasing alarmingly. It looked like the rate of infection was at risk of increasing exponentially.
In the week leading up to March 21, the number of daily national cases was 50, 50, 78, 77, 113, 142, 167. On March 21 we recorded 196 cases. In the next three days, we recorded 283, 364 and 430 cases.
Fast forward a month and the number of national cases this past week is 33, 47, 42, 45, 13, 26 and four.
In South Australia, where the #keepthemhome campaign has been launched by the AEU on the eve of the second term, starting on Monday, in the past week we have recorded two days of just one case, and three days of zero cases.
These are incredibly good figures. They are particularly good figures when you compare Australia with many European countries that have one-half or one-third our population with three, four, five, 10 times the rate of infections and deaths.
They are figures which suggest that SA and Australia can no longer dream about how the lockdown will end, but can actually start ending parts of the lockdown, as we have seen this week with elective surgeries and advice around aged care visits and the resumption of school.
I am confused as to why the AEU has adopted a March 21-style strategy when we live in a much more reassuring April 21 world.
Nothing in this column is a knock on teachers. Indeed it is a chance to thank our teachers again, public and private, for the awesome job they have done over the past five weeks.
They have reinvented the manner in which they work while grappling with genuine fears about their own health and the health of the children in their care.
And they have done so in an environment where at times not even the nation’s chief medical officers have been in lock-step about the safety or otherwise of working in a school environment.
I can understand the concerns of the AEU about the difficulties of maintaining social distancing in an often unruly school environment, and am not surprised by the union survey showing that 70 per cent of teachers say social distancing is not working.
Similarly, the union’s concerns about the availability of hand sanitiser have been valid.
But the union is wrong to launch this campaign now. It is wrong because we are now at a point in the curve where we can safely resume aspects of life that existed before the pandemic was declared.
I’ve heard critics of the State Government say it sent mixed messages by announcing four pupil-free days in the lead-up to Easter, sparking understandable speculation that SA was readying itself for a shift to remote learning in term two. Well, yeah, we were, in the event that cases continued to rise and we needed to go into stage four lockdown.
That has not happened. And in our education system, there has been just one case of transmission in SA within a school community, with the small number of other cases where teachers or students were infected involving overseas travellers or relatives of travellers in cluster areas such as the Barossa.
As a parent, I admit to having been confused about the nature of the advice in its totality. It is still hard to wrap your head around a ban on more than five people at weddings and 10 at funerals but 20-30 students in a confined classroom being fine.
But on questions like these, I am happier to be guided by our chief medical officer than by the AEU.
The union’s campaign is an audacious one in a state like ours that has performed as well as it has in the battle against COVID-19.
It is particularly ridiculous of the union to suggest that the Premier Steven Marshall cares less about teachers than other state premiers – especially when, in a commendable and mature display of bipartisanship, Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas supports the Government’s schools position, too.
One of the key reasons we have performed so well comes down to the consistent performance of our seriously impressive chief medical officer, Associate Professor Dr Nicola Spurrier.
While other states and CMOs have at times given mixed messages, Prof Spurrier has been plugging away like the Glenn McGrath of medicine, hitting the right mark all day every day, with the virus’s paltry scoring rate in SA a testament to her efforts.
The AEU risks squandering the goodwill that now exists towards teachers if it continues to rubbish the medical advice from respected professionals such as Prof Spurrier.
The blunt truth is, teachers are not the only group of workers who have performed with courage this past month or so.
The health workers on the frontline, dealing with people who actually do have COVID-19, deserve nothing but praise, as do the overwhelmingly young and female shop assistants at our supermarkets who have had to deal with hundreds of shoppers a day, many of them on their absolute worst behaviour.
And while I’m a believer in climate change, and have zero time for the culture wars dross that forms the backbone of some columnists’ musings, I do find it weird that the AEU could last year be so giddy with excitement about kids taking part in Extinction Rebellion rallies, arguing we should all be guided by the science on global warming, yet have the chutzpah to tell Prof Spurrier that they agree to disagree when it comes to pandemic management.
SA has done so well as a state because South Australians have been doing what they have been told to do. So let’s keep doing it.