Gladys Berejiklian pleads with schools to rethink closures

Schools that have proactively closed in response to the spread of COVID-19 are being urged by the NSW Premier to reopen.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, left, with NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant at parliament on Wednesday. Picture: AAP

Schools that have proactively closed in response to the spread of COVID-19 are being urged by the NSW Premier to reopen their doors and heed the advice of health officials nationwide, who say the benefits of such measures are overestimated against the spread of the virus.

About a dozen independent schools in NSW have moved to shut down in defiance of government requests to stay open.

In Victoria about 36 schools have done the same, according to Independent Schools Victoria, and Queensland schools are considering similar action.

During a press conference on Wednesday, NSW Premier ­Gladys Berejiklian moved to ­assure the community that public schools would remain open to students based on advice provided to the national cabinet.

About 815,000 students are enrolled in NSW state schools, and those with flu-like symptoms are being encouraged to stay home. A spokesman for NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said data on school attendance rates was still being collected.

“We would expect to see a ­higher than normal rate of school absences,” a NSW Education ­Department spokeswoman said.

Cabinet was advised on Tuesday that proactive school closures would be both costly and cumbersome. Overseas studies have suggested up to 30 per cent of healthcare workers would be forced to take time off to look after their kids if widespread school closures were enacted.

“For pre-emptive school closures to be effective, closure for at least several months is required and it would be unclear when they could be reopened,” said a statement from the Australian Health Protection Principle Committee, which takes in chief health officers from around the country.

On the same day that Ms Berejiklian mounted a defence of keeping schools open, NSW Health confirmed a further 50 cases of coronavirus had been diagnosed overnight, lifting the state’s tally of infections to 267. The death toll is five in NSW and six ­nationwide.

The heads of Sydney Catholic Schools and the Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta, which collectively represent 230 parish schools, have already called on the government to close school buildings as “a matter of urgency”.

“We would prefer that everybody is absolutely on the same page when it comes to all the stakeholders in education, and indications we’ve had from different sectors of the education system is that, in the main, everybody supports our decision,” Ms Berejiklian said.

Multiple schools are preparing to shut over the coming days in NSW and Victoria.

Sydney’s Kambala girls’ school confirmed it would stop classes on March 23. The Australian has learned Abbotsleigh, Ravenswood School for Girls, Knox Grammar School and Barker College, all in Sydney, are preparing to follow suit.

Ms Berejiklian said these closures jarred against advice from health experts. “We would hope that any school considering acting alone on this reconsider,” she said.

Geoff Newcombe, chief executive of the Association of Independent Schools of NSW, said his organisation remained supportive of the government’s attempts to keep schools open. But he sympathised with the desire of some schools to proactively shut down.