Listen to your premier, chief minister on schools: Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison has told parents to take advice from their premier or chief minister as the government seeks to clarify rules.

Teacher Georgia Smart teaching a mixed class of students at Elsternwick Primary School in Melbourne. Picture: David Geraghty.

Scott Morrison has told parents across Australia to take school safety advice from their premier or chief minister as the government seeks to clarify rules for the return of term two.

“Parents should follow the instructions that are being provided by state premiers and state education ministers,” the Prime Minister said on Thursday afternoon.

He said he wanted to make it clear that the Commonwealth does not run state schools.

“If you are going to school in Victoria there is only one person you need to listen to and that is the Premier of Victoria, likewise in New South Wales you should listen to the Premier of New South Wales … but in the Northern Territory it is what the Chief Minister has said and they have different arrangements again.

“I think it is very clear that the medical expert advice is. Children are safe to go to school, but there are issues within each state about the delivery of education, which they are going to take into account, which means that they will be operating on slightly different bases.”

Mr Morrison said despite these differences, states will have advice consistent with seven principles for schools set out by National Cabinet on Thursday.

Read the seven principles here

Anthony Albanese said the government is still putting out a “confused message” on schools after Mr Morrison released the list of seven principles for the return of term two.

“I think it remains a somewhat confused message. The Prime Minister seems keen to say everyone should go to school, whereas the message from some of the state and territory governments is different,” Mr Albanese told ABC TV.

“I want to see people listen to the health professionals and to take their advice, rather than (from politicians) – and I’m sure that that’s what Daniel Andrews and others are doing – and I think that is the right thing to do.”

Earlier, Victorian Education Minister James Merlino emphasised that “Victoria operates its schools”, amid conflicting messages from the state's Chief Health Officer and Canberra about whether children should be learning from home.
Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton on Wednesday issued a series of tweets, reiterating his advice that children should learn from home during Term Two, despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison stressing in a Facebook message on Wednesday morning that: “It's so important that children are able to keep physically going to school”.
Professor Sutton's tweets came after his federal counterpart, Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy, said on Tuesday that he was concerned state governments were closing schools “not from a health recommendation but almost because of parental fear”.

My advice to the Victorian Government was and continues to be that to slow the spread of coronavirus, schools should undertake remote learning for term two.
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— Chief Health Officer, Victoria (@VictorianCHO) April 15, 2020

This is because having around a million children and their parents in closer contact with each other, teachers and other support staff has the potential to increase cases of coronavirus not just in schools but across the community. 2/3

— Chief Health Officer, Victoria (@VictorianCHO) April 15, 2020

By having remote learning, it can contribute to physical distancing and therefore supports efforts to drive transmission down.
3/3

— Chief Health Officer, Victoria (@VictorianCHO) April 15, 2020

Schools are not ‘dangerous places’ and parents should feel comfortable sending their kids to school - if they need to. But the mix of onsite & offsite learning supports better physical distancing overall, reducing risk as we drive new cases down. As risk changes, we’ll reassess.

— Chief Health Officer, Victoria (@VictorianCHO) April 15, 2020

Asked whether the conflicting messages were creating unnecessary confusion for parents, Mr Merlino said he would not “speak for the Prime Minister” or “pre-empt discussions of National Cabinet”, which is due to meet on Thursday morning to review policy on how schools should operate during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“But Victoria operates its schools, Victoria is responsible for the school system," Mr Merlino said.

“The Victorian advice, based on health experts, is that if you can learn from home, you must learn from home, and parents are heeding that message, and it is making a difference.
“Our message has been consistent right along, based on the expert health advice of Victoria's Chief Health Officer.”

‘All but three per cent learning from home’

Mr Merlino said just three per cent of students had physically attended school when Term Two began on Wednesday, as the vast majority learnt from home.

“The fact that we had three per cent of students at government schools yesterday shows crystal clear that the message has been understood and Victorian families have responded, and it's important to reiterate why we are doing this,” Mr Merlino said.

“We are doing this because it will save lives.

“We don't want a million students, 80,000 teachers, support staff, parents and carers congregating around our schools.

“This is about social distancing, and it is working.”

‘Schools open for those who need them’

Mr Merlino said schools did remain open for those who needed them.

“Schools are not closed. Schools are open. That's been our consistent message to parents,” he said.

“If you cannot provide a home learning environment — and that's why we deliberately didn't have lists of who's in, and who’s out, because domestic circumstances vary greatly, and this is a conversation between schools and parents — if you cannot provide a home learning environment, your school is open, and we'll provide that learning environment on site.”

Mr Merlino said there had been "national agreement" among state, territory and federal education ministers that schools would be open for those who needed them.

“We also agree that jurisdictions will approach it differently because that will be based on the risk advice and the level of the pandemic in each jurisdiction.

“So everything we have been doing in Victoria is consistent with those national principles.”

‘No pressure’ from unions
Mr Merlino denied that he had faced pressure from teachers' unions to keep children away from school, as has happened in Queensland.

“Not at all,” Mr Merlino said.

“We've been engaging with everybody in our education system.

“I’ve been meeting with both government, Catholic and independent school leaders, engaging with the profession at all times, delivering on the advice of health experts.

“If and when that health advice changes, our response will change, but right now, as the Chief Health Officer again reiterated yesterday, the advice right now is that for Term Two, we need to be flexible and remote learning, where if you can work from home you must work from home.”
Asked whether there had been any threat of a teachers' strike if children were not required to learn from home, Mr Merlino said: “No”.