After 18 months of procrastinating on a COVID safe plan for Tasmanian schools, Education Minister Sarah Courtney has delivered an irresponsible and bewildering statement that confirms disruptions to learning and cancelled term four plans if COVID arrives before 15 December.
Shadow Education Minister Josh Willie said Ms Courtney had today made the extraordinary admission to State Parliament that she had done nothing to prepare schools for a potential COVID outbreak other than form another “joint working group” to conduct an audit and commission an ongoing study over the next two months to ascertain if school windows would open.
“It is beyond belief that Ms Courtney has had 18 months to plan for the possibility of an unfortunate COVID outbreak in Tasmanian schools and this is the best she can come up with,” Mr Willie said.
“Her statement to the Parliament today that she was overseeing an inspection of windows to see ‘if they operate as intended’ would be laughable if it was not so fundamentally incompetent.
“With the Premier saying that the delta COVID variant will arrive in Tasmania, safety and preparedness in our state schools will be critical.
“Ms Courtney has now confirmed however that very few upgrades have been undertaken and her further claims that air purity and ventilation will be investigated and shade structures will be installed are far too late.
“If she was at a loss to understand the gravity and urgency of this situation and what might be done, Ms Courtney needed only to look to other states.
“The Victorian Government for instance is investing heavily in measures to reduce the risk of COVID transmission with 51,000 air purification devices to be rolled out to all government and low-fee Catholic schools.
“It should be no surprise to Ms Courtney that many of our school buildings are older and may require significant works to make them COVID safe.
“When you consider that by the time Ms Courtney actually gets around to do something when school returns in February next year – as the colder weather approaches – how is opening a window any type of plan?
“Minister Courtney should release the Department of Education audit and provide a funding figure to address the recommendations – anything less shows this government isn’t being transparent in making our schools COVID safe.”
Josh Willie MLC
Shadow Minister for Education
