NSW school students told HSC exams will go ahead due to Pfizer vaccines

Principals have questioned how they will deal with anti-vax students and keeping teachers safe after making a decision on whether HSC exams would go ahead.

HSC exams will go ahead thanks to 40,000 Pfizer jabs to be diverted from regional NSW to Year 12 students who attend school in eight Sydney local government areas.

Principals said there are many unanswered questions over the plan which NSW Health said would allow students to complete their exams in October as originally scheduled while reducing the risk of Covid spreading outside of Sydney.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said Year 12 students would return to class on August 16.

HSC exams will go ahead this year thanks to Pfizer jabs that will be given to students in Sydney hot spots.

“I want to thank in advance regional NSW where we will take some Pfizer vaccines given the changing health advice around AstraZeneca and make sure Year 12 students in those local government areas of concern are provided with that vaccine,” she said.

“We don’t want students going to face-to-face learning, getting the virus and then taking it home to their families.”

Secondary Principals Council president Craig Petersen said it was unclear how students would be vaccinated in just over two weeks time and called on the government not to rush sending children back to school.

“Particularly in southwest Sydney, the sense of colleagues is they are afraid, some have entire families who have tested positive, they’re concerned for the safety of their families,” he said.

“The HSC is important but it is not worth risking people’s lives for.”

He said it was also unclear if the students would be vaccinated while at school and how principals would deal with students and staff who were anti-vaxxers — while he said the plan would be complicated by a large number of students who live in southwest and western Sydney but leave the area to go to school.

Kirrawee High School Year 12 student Anna Elyard, 17, said she was supportive of the move to ensure HSC exams went ahead but said more students in Sydney should be eligible to receive a jab. She will not get a Pfizer vaccine because she goes to Kirrawee High School in the Sutherland Shire. Students 15 minutes’ drive away who attend school in the Georges River local council area, however, will receive one.

“I think everyone sitting the HSC should be given the opportunity, it could easily spread rapidly to the Shire in the months between now and the exams,” she said.

While the government had said the HSC exams would proceed, after the uncertainty of last year she said she would believe it when it happened

“I do want to do our exams — on the one hand we need to complete them but I feel like our health and wellbeing is more valuable than a mark,” she said.

NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos said he believed the return to school was at odds with health advice.

“Noting the advice that worksites and human interaction are the major contributors to transmission of the virus, we are dumbfounded by today’s announcement particularly as some of our schools with large Year 12 groups, will have gatherings of up to 600 people on site,” he said.