The NSW education department has not been keeping track of how many teachers have been vaccinated against COVID-19, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.
Speaking on Wednesday, NSW Education Department Secretary Georgina Harrisson said the department is not able to say how many teachers in the state have been fully or partially vaccinated.
Harrisson fronted the inquiry alongside Education Minister Sarah Mitchell, who said about 51 per cent of the state’s teachers were aged 40 and over, and had been eligible for vaccination for some time. But otherwise, she could not say how many teachers had received a vaccine.
Harrisson said the booking process does not allow the department to capture information about how many teachers are being vaccinated, and as an employer there were questions about employee’s privacy when it comes to tracking vaccinations.
“At this stage we are not tracking vaccinations of teachers,” Ms Harrison said.
“The appointment booking process doesn’t capture that information and enable us to do that. And so we can, you know, we continue to encourage all of our staff to go and get vaccinated at the first opportunity they have.”
This news comes as the president of the teachers’ union Angelo Gavrielatos told the inquiry that he had been shocked to learn of the return-to-school plan for Year 12 students through media reports.
Gavrielatos said he had seen a tweet by a journalist and a report in the Sydney Morning Herald on the evening of the July 27 about the plan. He said he later received a phone call from the secretary of the department to advise him of what was already printed in the media.
“From that moment we communicated most directly our views in relation to that announcement, or that decision by the Premier, which was thereafter announced at the 11 o’clock press conference the following day,” he told the inquiry.
“No one wants students to come back more than teachers, after their parents, of course – but we want them back when it’s safe.”
Gavrielatos said teachers, especially those under the age of 40, were finding it difficult to book Pfizer vaccinations, or to get timely AstraZeneca appointments.
“48 per cent of teachers are under the age of 40, 80 per cent of them are women. Do the maths in terms of how many are pregnant, do the maths in terms of immunocompromised teachers,” he said.
“All of whom are finding it very difficult to access vaccination rollouts in terms of supply with Pfizer, but also access in terms of timely appointments for AstraZeneca as well.”
Gavrielatos said the teachers’ federation had not heard any information in the last week about rapid antigen testing in schools, and that it’s implementation could be an “administrative nightmare”.
“There’s been no consultation with us…The mere thought of it would be an administrative nightmare…it’s mind boggling to think about how rapid antigen testing each day would work in our environments.
“These are logistical issues that if we were brought to the table we could offer advice about given, as I said, we know a bit about school operations because we live it and experience it.”
According to reports from the Sydney Morning Herald, the NSW Department of Education has hired consultancy firm KPMG to take the initial lead in designing a back-to-school plan for the state. Mitchell and Harrisson denied these claims in the inquiry.
Asked when parents will find out when they will be able to send their children back to school, Mitchell told the inquiry that will be in the coming weeks.
“We are working on that with our stakeholders…we know that we’re learning from home until the 28th of August, that is still two-and-a-half weeks away.”
Speaking anonymously to Women’s Agenda, a teacher in the NSW state system said it feels like teachers are being treated by the government as “glorified child-minders” and that the reality of returning to face-to-face teaching is potentially a “life and death” decision while so many remain unvaccinated.