Learning harsh economic lessons during pandemic

Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan indulged an immense frustration on Sunday when he accused Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews of showing a “failure of leadership” by not having a plan to reopen schools in term two. Mr Tehan’s language may have been sharp, but it was not as severe as the damage he risked to the national consensus on restarting learning in the classroom. Scott Morrison quickly pulled his loose minister into line. Mr Tehan apologised for overstepping the mark. The next day, Mr Andrews said the comments were “ancient history”. Move along, please. Spats between consenting egos aside, Canberra has a point: children should be back at school. It’s essential for their progress and wellbeing. New studies show students living in poverty and those with a learning disability are most vulnerable in the shutdown. The danger is growing inequality, misery and lifelong damage.

Reopening schools is critical for the broader community, too. New Treasury analysis presented to national cabinet shows classroom closures have led to more than 300,000 job losses and ripped 3 per cent off our gross domestic product. The Prime Minister says those hard numbers put “enormous pressure” on the timetable to move us back to a COVID-safe economy. Getting kids to school frees up their parents, especially mothers. It will boost productivity and GDP. Although it does not run schools, Canberra is waving a $3.3bn carrot to non-government schools to reopen campuses and return to at least 50 per cent classroom teaching before the end of the month. Mr Morrison has been steadfast, rather than stubborn, on schools. Yet it is up to premiers and chief ministers, who take responsibility for schools, to make the tough calls.

Around the nation, authorities are reopening schools in a sequenced way. From Monday, NSW students will be back in the classroom, starting with a day or two of school-based tuition each week. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says the flexible approach means authorities can respond quickly to new spikes in the spread of COVID-19. Queensland students will also be back on Monday, with prep, Year 1 and Years 11 and 12 to return first; if that goes well, all students would return to classrooms from May 25. In South Australia and Western Australia, students returned to class last week, although about a third continued to learn from home. Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein urged parents to keep their children at home if they could. All Northern Territory schools are open.

But in Victoria and the ACT, there is no return date for government schools, although many private schools are back. In Victoria, parents have been told that all students who can learn from home must continue to do so. Those who cannot should attend their normal school. Still, there is some light at the end of the Zoom call: Mr Andrews is open to the idea of a return this term if the medical evidence supports the move. On this score, however, the advice from the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee has not changed. On Wednesday, Mr Morrison noted that COVID-19 had a very low rate of transmission and movement between children, particularly when it came to severe cases. “Children can safely go to school, schools have always been safe to fully open,” he said. “You’ve got to make sure that workplace for those who work in it, for the teachers, others, is safe.”

Of course that applies to any workplace as restrictions are eased. Nev Power’s COVID-19 Commission is working with employers and unions to develop tools for businesses to be able to open, keeping patrons and workers safe. Yet schools are different to, say, supermarkets or public transport. Teachers are exposed to kids in the confines of a classroom for extended periods; a classroom is an up close and personal environment; kids often don’t respect personal space. Protecting teachers from infection will require new protocols. In France, for instance, class sizes will be limited to 15; masks are obligatory for high school students; and teachers are encouraged to wear masks. School cleaning must be extended and improved. Older teachers, or those with health issues, should be rostered to minimise risks to them. The broader, faster, asymptomatic testing regime must be extended to all teachers, and possibly to their families.

Federal, state and territory leaders have pledged to having a “sustainable COVID-19-safe economy by July”, subject to adequate testing, tracing and local surge health response capacity. On Friday, national cabinet is set to issue a three-step framework to remove baseline restrictions. That will give people a sense of what life will be like over the next few months. The longer school restrictions remain in place, the more it will hurt students; those in early childhood and elementary levels could be most affected, as well as the already disadvantaged. We know over the five weeks to April 18, almost one million jobs were lost; unemployment is rising fast. Each week of shutdown is costing us $4bn in lost productivity, workforce participation and consumption. Sadly, as Mr Morrison says, those are the facts. Our nation is being homeschooled in the harsh lessons of a pandemic.