Coronavirus Australia: Gladys Berejiklian urges parents to keep kids home from school

Parents in NSW are encouraged to keep their children at home “for practical reasons” while today marks an early last day of the school term for those in Victoria.

Schools across the country will remain open amid the coronavirus outbreak however NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is encouraging parents to keep their children at home “for practical reasons”.

She said 30 per cent of parents had already made the choice to keep their kids at home and the state government feels it is “the best course to follow” in regards to the state health advice.

Schools in NSW will remain open for children “for parents who have no option”.

In an address to the nation on Sunday night, Mr Morrison made it very clear his position on schools had not changed.

“Children should go to school tomorrow,” he said, adding that there had been no change to the health advice.

“I do not want to see our children lose an entire year of their education. This is very serious. If you are a four-year-old child at preschool, you do not get your year back. You only get it once.

“Early childhood education is incredibly important. As are all the years of school education. And we want to ensure keeping Australia running means ensuring we can keep up to the mark with our children’s education as best as we can and where there is health advice — which there is — you can get to school and you can be taught, then it is important that we do that for as long as possible, except where health circumstances would change that arrangement.”

But the PM said schools could be shut for the entire year if Australians didn’t take the virus seriously.

“If there is not a broad co-operation in the population … states will have to take more severe measures,” Mr Morrison said on ABC on Sunday night.

“(The restrictions) just won’t be for a couple of weeks. I mean kids could lose their entire year of school. That’s what’s at stake here. “

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Mr Morrison said parents would be allowed to keep children at home until the end of the school term.

Victoria has already acted, announcing it was bringing forward Easter holidays to Tuesday. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Monday said term two is scheduled to begin on April 14, “unless I have medical advice not to proceed with term two at school”.

Queensland still has two weeks of school remaining, with term one ending on April 3. While New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, ACT and Northern Territory have three weeks left with the last day of term on April 9.

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NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian speaks to the media in Sydney today. Picture: AAP Image/Joel Carrett

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Monday said while schools would be staying open from Tuesday, parents are being encouraged to keep their children at home.

“For practical reasons, in NSW we will be encouraging parents to keep their children at home,” she told reporters.

“However I want to stress that for parents who have no option, for parents who are workers, that have no option, the schools will remain open. No child will be turned away from school.”

Ms Berejiklian said there will be “one unit of teaching” and not separate classes for students at school or at home.

“It will be one unit of teaching that makes it simple and practical and that is the strongest advice we can provide to parents today,” she said.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said: “No student will be turned away from a NSW public school at this time. We have resources ready to go, we are well equipped to do this in NSW.”

Mr Morrison had a stern message for any parents who decided to take their children out of school.

“Parents who … make the decision for the children to remain at home must take responsibility for those children,” he said.

“Those children are staying at home, it is not an excuse for them to go down to the shopping centre or to go and congregate somewhere else or potentially put themselves in contact with the vulnerable and elderly population.

“If you choose to keep your child at home, you are responsible for the conduct and behaviour of your children. It is important that they observe the strict social distancing arrangements that have been advised to the public.

“This term break will be like none other. This will not be a holiday, as it is normally known for the break in term. There will not be trips interstate, there will not be those holiday normal type arrangements.

“There will not be congregating up at the trampoline venue or whatever it happens to be. That will not be happening. It won’t be a holiday as anyone has ever known it.”

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A Sydney classroom is cleaned due to coronavirus fears. Picture: AAP/Monique Harmer

Mr Morrison said schools would make work available for children who were held back from school — but that would take time.

“Schools will seek to provide learning at home in a distance learning framework but you cannot be assured that that will come in place immediately,” he said.

“That will take some arrangements from those schools, particularly the public schools, in many independent and Catholic schools they may choose to move to those models, already have, but what is important here is if you are a parent and you want your child to go to school up until the end of this term, and the schools should remain open and must remain open is the instruction, until the end of that term.”

Mr Morrison said the premiers and chief ministers all had the same view that schools should reopen on the other side of the term break, subject to health advice.