Thursday, 7 April 2022

Northern Victoria Region

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (12:48): (1751) My constituency question is for the Minister for Education. Minister, over the last term how many Northern Victoria school classes have not had teachers due to close contact isolation requirements? A Border Mail article from yesterday states that Wodonga schools are experiencing teacher shortages and are frequently forced into remote classes because vaccinated COVID-negative teachers are required to isolate as close contacts. This adds to the shortage created when unvaccinated teachers were expelled from the classrooms. Vaccination was supposed to stop the spread of COVID, but this government admits it does not do that enough to allow isolation requirements to be lifted. Parents report that frequently kids discover that only one or two of their classes have teachers in a day. The additional pressures on the remaining staff make teaching more stressful, and the resulting burnout pushes even more teachers to a career change or early retirement. We need to change the close contact isolation rules and end the mandates, bringing back teachers to our classrooms.