Opinion: Qld’s teacher vaccination mandate will wreak havoc

The State Government’s directive for all teachers to be fully vaccinated, while valid, is poorly timed, lacks detail and threatens to spark staff shortages in our schools, writes Kylie Lang.

The drip-feeding of vaccine mandates continues as the self-serving Queensland Labor Government takes aim at teachers.

With only a week left of term four, the timing is poor to say the least.

You can’t tell me Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Education Minister Grace Grace only suddenly thought of it, the controversial ruling that all teachers must be double-vaxxed by January 23 or risk being sacked or “redeployed”.

Surely it was mooted in August when Delta clusters wreaked havoc in several schools.

Children, teachers and families from Ironside State School, Indooroopilly State High, Brisbane Grammar, Brisbane Girls Grammar, St Joseph’s (Terrace) and Anglican Church Grammar (Churchie) were among those affected.

Why wait until the last few days of the academic year and leave schools scrambling over the holidays to backfill for the 10 to 15 per cent of educators I’m told refuse to or cannot, for medical reasons, be immunised?

Was the Government hoping to avert strike action by its mates at the Queensland Teachers Union after already copping flak from parents over the home-schooling debacle?

Who knows, because neither the Premier nor Minister is telling us.

Many teachers I know are calling out the mandate as an ill-timed power play that threatens to turn the start of the 2022 academic year into a cluster of a different kind.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (right) and Education Minister Grace Grace

Principals have been frantically contacting staff this week to find out their vaccination status and stance, and you can bet they and other senior staff will be working through Christmas to minimise the fallout. Happy holidays indeed.

It is evident from what Ms Grace told The Courier-Mail this week when asked to explain the mandate that the specifics are still up in the air, “on the table” or anywhere else they might be but properly sorted.

“We’re working to finalise that health directive and everything is on the table in relation to what would occur after the 23rd,” she said.

The mandate covers workers at all schools, state, Catholic and independent, including administration staff, grounds people, contractors and volunteers. Childcare educators and after-school care operators are also included. All these people will need to have their first vaccine by December 17.

How that will play out in small regional communities where vaccine access is more difficult doesn’t seem to be concerning the government.

It is also not fazed by teacher shortages – which were chronic already – with Ms Grace signalling “backup plans to use substitute teachers … we have a very high number of people that (sic) are available temporarily that (sic) can come into schools”.

That’s not the word on the street.

The line-up at a Brisbane vaccination hub

As one Brisbane primary school teacher told me: “We are screaming out for supply teachers – you just can’t get them – you can make 15 to 20 calls and still come up with no one.”

And if Ms Grace is banking on first-year teachers with newly minted degrees saving the day, she’s wrong on that front too.

“New grads need a lot of hand holding,” one state high school teacher told me, “they do not hit the ground running”.

I have no problem with vaccination mandates.

As I’ve written previously, I believe people who are able to be immunised should roll up their sleeves.

Vaccination reduces your chance of getting Covid, being hospitalised and dying from it, and it lowers your likelihood of transmitting the virus to others.

We don’t live in silos, we live in communities and therefore have responsibilities not only to our own wellbeing but also to others.

Teachers, like health workers who were slapped with a similar mandate in November, should accept vaccination as a condition of employment. So should workers in every sector, for that matter.

But for this government to hand down its latest directive now – months after other parts of Australia and the world – proves how painfully out of touch it is with how schools are run.

Our kids and the people at the coalface of their education deserve better than ignorance.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail

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LOATHE

■ Scaremongering by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in stating Omicron is “far more serious than Delta” despite having no medical evidence.

■ Queensland’s hopeless mental health support system. When hospitals are turning away dangerously ill people because they have no beds, that’s a disgrace. Bring on a meaningful, wide-ranging inquiry and sort this mess out.