Coronavirus, Schools

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:55): My question is to the Premier. What is the government's advice to parents: to only send their children to school if they have no choice, or school is the safest place and children should go there? With your leave and that of the house, I would like to explain.

Leave granted.

Dr CLOSE: Parents are uncertain about the impacts on their children's schools and teachers of sending their children to school in term 2. Teachers and principals are uncertain if they are able to support a large percentage of children in the classroom as well as a reasonable number at home. Does the government want all children at school or only those who absolutely have to be there?

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta—Minister for Education) (14:56): I thank the member for the question. I don't accept entirely the premise of her question—that there are only the two descriptions that she has put on the situation. Our government's response is very clearly that we will take, be guided by and convey the advice of the AHPPC, and in particular our Chief Public Health Officer in South Australia, Associate Professor Nicola Spurrier, who sits on the AHPPC and who conveys to me their advice. I imagine their advice goes directly to the Premier through the national cabinet.

Associate Professor Nicola Spurrier is also able to reflect on their advice in response to the South Australian condition in relation to the pandemic and the engagement that she has with the South Australian Department for Education about what is relevant in our schools. Catholic Education South Australia and the Association of Independent Schools, obviously also through me, feed information into the public health situation.

I have endeavoured to be very consistent in the messaging, which is consistent with that of the AHPPC and Associate Professor Nicola Spurrier. Parents are now supported. If they are in a position to facilitate their children's learning at home, we will support them to do so. Our schools will support them to do so. But the AHPPC advice, and the advice of Associate Professor Nicola Spurrier, is very clear: schools remain safe places and our schools will not turn a child away who presents themselves.

There are many reasons why a child might present at school in this circumstance. It may be that their parents are doing jobs that cannot be done from home, or indeed that even if their parents are potentially doing jobs from home they can supervise safely the supervision of the learning of their children at home.

There is a group of vulnerable children in our community, with whom the member I know is intimately familiar, whose parents might not necessarily put their hands up to say that they are a vulnerable family, that their child is in a vulnerable situation if they are at home. By seeking to too explicitly define the circumstance, you will be defining those children out of the support that they need to get in a school environment. That is a concern that has been raised directly with me by Associate Professor Spurrier. It is a concern that has been raised with the public by the Commissioner for Children and Young People, Helen Connolly.

It is critical that we support those children in families that are in vulnerable situations. It is also important that families not be placed in a situation where parents feel like they need to make a decision between their child's education or their being able to do a job, their being able to continue to earn a salary in the workforce.

If the heath advice changes from the AHPPC or from Associate Professor Nicola Spurrier, then we will update the advice about whether schools are low-risk environments for families and indeed for the workforce now that we have also put into place extra cleaning measures, extra measures to support hygiene, extra measures to support social distancing and indeed extra measures to protect vulnerable workers who are being supported to work from home where possible. If the health advice changes, then we will honour that health advice from Associate Professor Spurrier.

We also have strong protocols in place to support schools that need to shut down in a circumstance where there has been a positive test in a member of that school community who has been present at the school. There have been, I think, half a dozen examples or thereabouts in South Australia: a couple in the non-government sector and at least three or four in the government sector. We have closed those schools, enabling cleaning to take place, enabling contact tracing of the relevant person to take place, and the situation has been honoured on those. The protocols are very clear.

However, parents can send their children to school. Those parents who wish to keep their students at home are supported to do so as long as they can safely support and supervise the learning of their children, ensuring that their children are not running around engaging in the sorts of activities that might usually take place were we not in this pandemic.