Coronavirus: Catholic schools tell at-risk students to stay away

Schools throughout Australia have gone against the government’s coronavirus advice.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said it had not ‘been easy’ to ask students to stay home. Picture: AAP

Schools throughout Australia have gone against the government’s coronavirus advice and ­demanded students who have been to China be cleared by a doctor before attending class.

After a series of independent schools put in place extreme measures against the coronavirus, Sydney Catholic Schools — which represents 152 schools and more than 70,000 students — has written to parents to outline the group’s tough measures against the virus.

NSW public schools are also asking — but not demanding — students who have been in China in the past 14 days to stay home.

Sydney Catholic Schools has joined a broad coalition of private schools pushing back against Education Minister Dan Tehan’s calls for all children who show no symptoms to go back to school.

Private schools are isolating pupils who have recently visited China or telling them to stay away for at least a fortnight, while other schools are demanding medical certificates as the school year ­begins this week.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said it had not “been easy” to ask students to stay home. “We’re going to ask parents, I stress ‘ask those parents’, to do what everybody else has been doing,” he said. “That is to support the community by holding back your children.”

Sydney Catholic Schools executive director Tony Farley, in a letter to parents on Tuesday, said the stringent measures were in children’s best interests.

“A small number of school principals have notified the Sydney Catholic Schools’ office indicating that some students in their school have indeed visited China over the holiday period,” Mr Farley wrote to parents.

“In the interest of prioritising the health and welfare of our students and our community, the following protocols will be in place to start the new year.

“If you have visited China anytime in December to now, please refrain from sending your children to school until they have been checked and cleared by a doctor.”

In Brisbane, Chinese boarders at St Joseph’s Nudgee College will be required to undergo a medical examination before returning to class. “The college has been in contact with our overseas students who are ­returning from China in the coming days,” principal Peter Fullagar said. “These boys will be assessed and monitored. Subject to this assessment, these students will be returning to class and regular school life.”

Ten Chinese boarders at Stuartholme girls school who arrived in Brisbane on Tuesday ready to start the academic year will be kept in isolation in a separate floor of the boarding house where they will be monitored for the disease.

An 11th student has been unable to return because she is in the quarantine zone in China.

Stuartholme principal Kristen Sharpe told the ABC “every boarding school would be concerned about this, and trying to manage it as best they can”.