Covid-19 jab rules put 5000 NSW teachers in danger

More than 5000 teachers could be out of work by November as the NSW government enforces a ‘no jab, no job’ mandate for school staff.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has unveiled plans for a staggered ­return of students to face-to-face learning. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

More than 5000 teachers could be out of work by November as the NSW government enforces a “no jab, no job” mandate for school staff.

A survey by the NSW Department of Education of more than 57,000 staff has revealed almost 10 per cent do not intend to be vaccinated.

State education authorities announced on Friday that teachers must be vaccinated before all students return to school, a move that would leave almost 5400 teachers out of a job if they stuck to their stated intentions.

“For those who refuse to be vaccinated it will not be possible for us to maintain their employment in a school setting,” Department of Education secretary Georgina Harrisson told a parliamentary hearing.

The tough stand comes as NSW recorded 882 locally ­acquired cases of Covid-19 on Friday and two deaths.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian unveiled plans for a staggered ­return of students to face-to-face learning. Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 12 students will be permitted to return from October 25. Year 12 students are already able to go to school in a limited form, but will commence full-time ­access. Year 2, 6 and 11 will return from November 1, with the ­remaining year groups returning on November 8.

HSC exams have been pushed back for Year 12 students until November 9.

Ms Berejiklian said if stay-at-home orders were lifted in a local government area or region before the return to school date, children might commence face-to-face learning earlier.

But before school returns in full, teachers across all sectors must have both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine. So far, about 39 per cent of state teachers are fully vaccinated, while 28 per cent have received one dose, according to the Department of Education survey.

Thirty-one per cent of respondents said they had not received the first dose. Seventeen per cent of those intended to get their first jab in the next month, while 1.1 per cent said they were unable to be vaccinated, as they fell into one of the exemptions in the public health order. Some 9.4 per cent (5358) don’t intend to be vaccinated in the next month.

Ms Harrisson said that, anecdotally, she knew of teachers who couldn’t get vaccination appointments until October, who would contribute to that percentage.

But NSW Teachers Federation secretary Angelo Gavrielatos said vaccine hesitancy was present in the teaching com­munity, “as in the general public”.

“There are teachers who are vaccine hesitant as there are members of the general public who are vaccine hesitant,” he said.

“We will continue to encourage teachers to avail themselves for the vaccination.”

Priority vaccinations will be provided for teachers at Qudos Bank Arena the week beginning September 6. “We are calling out for … any teacher that is not vaccinated to get vaccinated and we will be supporting them and assisting them,” Ms Berejiklian said.

Mr Gavrielatos, while supportive of mandatory vaccines, said the prioritisation of teachers for the jab should have come “much earlier”.

“For over two months, since the beginning of the second wave, every single day we’ve been calling on the government to prioritise the vaccination rollout for teachers,” he said. “We still have a large number of teachers who are experiencing barriers to access that vaccination.

“One other thing that people need to appreciate is that not everyone lives in the shadows of the Qudos arena. The state is very large place, and those issues of ­access are impacting teachers.”

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said that when students eventually returned, they would learn under level three restrictions. “We will see other things like minimal mixing … no assemblies or large gatherings,” she said. “We will also have mask wearing mandatory for all of our staff on our school sites, mandatory for our high school students, and we will be strongly recommending that our primary school students also wear masks.”