Coronavirus: Back to school part of the recovery, but in good time

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy was looking ahead on Monday when he said opening schools and lifting limits on the size of gatherings would be among the first measures the Morrison government would look at relaxing when medical experts were satisfied community transmission of COVID-19 was under control. That approach is consistent with the expert health advice Dr Murphy and others have provided to governments since the start of the pandemic. It has served the nation well.

The restrictions enacted have contained Australia’s caseload to a level that is the envy of most G20 nations. The medical advice early on was to leave schools open. In schools where small outbreaks of coronavirus occurred, they were dealt with swiftly, with the schools temporarily closed and those in close contact with patients tracked and tested. As caseload numbers rose, increasing numbers of parents chose to keep their children at home. After a few days, this became an overwhelming majority. Some independent schools shut up shop; and most schools took important initiatives to provide digital and online education.

The Easter holidays were a welcome respite, albeit a crowded one in many homes. Now it is decision time again — for families, teachers, principals and governments. There is no need to rush and no need for parents to panic at the thought of sending their children back to crowded classrooms, corridors, playgrounds and lunch areas when in the outside world individuals are not yet allowed to sit alone in a park, drive to one’s own holiday home or cross the NSW-Queensland border. Teachers unions also are concerned. “Somehow it’s OK for hundreds of students and hundreds of teachers to be together at school and that’s safe,” Queensland Teachers Union president Kevin Bates said on Monday. But not yet. The unions, sensibly, are seeking protections for vulnerable staff and calling for effective hygiene measures.

Dr Murphy made it clear on Monday that it is too early to talk about relaxing restrictions. But he was equally clear that schools would be the first priority of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee when it ultimately came to relaxing restrictions. That strategy is well-founded: “We haven’t yet seen significant student-to-student transmission.” The AHPPC also is working on advice for the national cabinet on how to make schools safer learning environments, to prevent transmission between children and to protect teachers. The AHPPC advice remains that schools should be open but that strict social-distancing measures, such as cancelling school assemblies and maintaining personal hygiene rules, should be in place. Last week, Education Minister Dan Tehan warned non-government schools that they must also open at the beginning of term two to cater for the children of essential workers and vulnerable minors. If they refuse, their taxpayer funding will be in jeopardy.

In addition to wanting to protect their children’s health, parents reading up about COVID-19 are also worried about the potential of children, who can be asymptomatic “silent spreaders” of the disease, to infect other family members. Such fears, however, should be allayed by the prudent approaches being taken by the states. In Victoria, where term two starts on Wednesday, on-site classes will be available only to students who cannot learn from home for the entire term. In Queensland, term two starts next Monday. Children will engage in home-based learning for at least the first five weeks. Schools will be open only for essential-care workers’ children and vulnerable students, with no more than 12 students to be permitted in a classroom. In NSW, where the new term starts on April 27, arrangements will be announced soon. By the end of term one, 95 per cent of NSW students were staying home, on the advice of Premier Gladys Berejiklian. Hastening slowly, as the states and schools are doing, is wise — especially from a health perspective.

From a broader perspective, the return to school will be a significant stepping stone in the nation’s economic recovery from COVID-19. Overseeing children’s lessons, depending on their ages, is demanding for parents working from home. It is hard to do both things well. As a short-term measure, home learning has been considered necessary by parents to protect their children and reduce the spread of COVID-19. But cocooning by workers and their children should not be regarded as a viable proposition for any longer than is essential. The nation cannot afford to let it become the new normal. The national cabinet is right in wanting to get children back at school.