ICPA calls for immediate changes to NSW border rules for students
Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association president deems NSW border restrictions unworkable for schoolchildren, and calls for immediate changes to give students access to education.
RURAL children who cross state borders to attend school are facing arduous 14-day quarantine periods, lengthy trips through airports to return home and potential exclusion from on-campus classes under strict new coronavirus border measures imposed by NSW, Queensland and South Australia.
Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association of New South Wales president Claire Butler is calling for immediate changes to border rules so children who travel interstate to access education are classed as essential travellers.
“We need policy writers to consider the unique situation these children are in before they make policy on the run,” Ms Butler said.
NSW’s border restrictions tightened on August 7, requiring any child or teacher who lives outside the official border zone in Victoria – a strip of townships along the Murray River including Mildura, Wodonga and Echuca – to apply for an exemption to enter NSW for study or work.
While current day-school visitor permits will be valid until Friday, August 21, after this date non-border zone students and teachers must reapply for a permit.
The NSW education department website explains any students or staff not eligible for a border permit will be supported with remote learning through an online learning hub.
Ms Butler said children attending boarding schools in regional Victoria outside the border zone were facing unnecessary hardship when returning to their rural NSW homes and that the system was completely unworkable.
The NSW border changes require all people, including students entering NSW from Victoria who do not live in the border zone to arrive through Sydney Airport.
Students must be collected by a parent or guardian at Sydney Airport; travel directly to their usual residence in NSW using private transport; and complete a 14-day quarantine period at home.
In a statement, Ms Butler said: “these plans can easily incorporate the return of children to rural and remote NSW without the need to greatly expose them to COVID-19 by catching flights from Melbourne to Sydney and parents then driving thousands of kilometres to pick them up, then travelling back home substantially increasing the risk to regional and rural NSW going against all publicised medical directives.
“None of this is making logistical sense when all the while the child could have been bussed by the school straight to the NSW border in regional Victoria. We call on NSW Government to amend this condition immediately.”
She said NSW students crossing the South Australia border for school were dealt with individually by the South Australia health authority and there was little clarity about what the rules were for students travelling from NSW to Queensland for study.
“There is no consistency nationally and we need a future plan of what the return to school looks like for children, who due to geographic isolation must attend boarding school interstate,” she said.
“These children are from remote properties and can easily self isolate at home during the holidays.”
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