Schools switch to remote learning, but safe for teachers and students
Queensland schools will switch to remote learning but remain open for vulnerable students and children of essential workers as the state applies the handbrake on coronavirus outbreaks.
Scott Morrison is concerned about too many students being forced into distance education. Photo: ABC
Only 35 new cases were recorded from Good Friday to Easter Monday, taking the total number of Queensland positive COVID-19 tests to 987 of which 442 have recovered.
Although the daily rate of positive tests has now been reduced to single figures, public gathering restrictions will remain in place.
Staff at schools and childcare centres are now on the list of those who can be tested for COVID-19.
Teachers will be required at public schools when the second term starts again on Monday and remote learning will be in place until May 22.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said, on the advice of the Chief Health Officer, that it was safe for staff to return to work and students to attend school.
“By May 15, we will once again let people know definitely which way to go,” Palaszczuk said.
“Teachers will be going to school, just as the teacher aides and the cleaners, and everybody else who makes up that school community.”
Palaszczuk said “we are in extraordinary times” and she believed many would be comfortable with the decision to open schools, with the measures also applying to kindergartens.
Teachers will be preparing lessons to be taught to those off-campus while the Government was implementing measures to assist students who may not have access to a computer or internet at home.
Education Minister Grace Grace said they were working with Telstra to provide 5000 sim cards that would grant internet access for stay-at-home students.
“We’re going to ensure as much as we can that students have the availability to have devices either from schools or to be able to have them lent or borrowed to them,” Grace said.
“Parents, of course, have a new role and we know it’s not going to be easy.”
Overall, people are largely following the strict new regulations aimed at preventing the spread of the virus and enforcement is considered a last resort, police said.
However, some, such as a keen helicopter pilot and about 500 other people, have run foul of the rules.
“The fellow with a helicopter who thought it would be OK to fly to an area against the requirements of the directions, not only once but twice,” Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski said on Monday.
“So on both occasions, actions have been taken … that’s not on.”
Police have issued 496 fines and turned around 906 vehicles at state borders in what they say has been the quietest Easter for a long time.
There have been 364 international arrivals over the weekend and all have gone into quarantine, police say.
A rescue flight of Australians from the Peruvian capital Lima is expected to arrive in Brisbane on Tuesday.
-AAP
