Teachers have renewed calls to be given priority vaccination following the extension of the lockdown in Victoria.
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When schools returned in January, Independent Education Union (IEU) organiser for the Riverina Lyn Caton revealled the ambition to have all teachers vaccinated against COVID-19 by the beginning of term 2.
That deadline now having passed, Ms Caton said it would be ideal to have "teachers, school staff, bus drivers, everyone who will be in contact with hundreds of students a day to be vaccinated as soon as possible".
"The situation in Victoria right now has proven that everyone is vulnerable," Ms Caton said.
"If you have a parent that comes down with something and their child goes to school, the ability to transmit that to a thousand people in a day is uncanny, I don't think that happens in all walks of life."
Since August 2020, the NSW Teachers Federation has been calling for priority to be given to school staff.
"While the federation understands and supports that the immediate government priority for the COVID-19 vaccinations is for workers in frontline health care, aged care, disability care, and quarantine and border facilities," a spokesperson for the federation said.
"The roll-out strategy's identification of 'critical and high-risk workers' must ensure that teachers and principals in schools be placed in the higher priority groups, given their critical role to societal functioning."
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The federation is now calling for the profession to be classed among the critical and high risk workers, in order to fast-track the roll-out of vaccinations to all those who wish to have one.
"Further, teachers must be identified as a priority group in the national roll-out of the vaccine given their collective exposure within the community each day and the need to protect our teachers and the ongoing essential service of public education for our students," the spokesperson said.
"Given our students under 18 are not recommended to receive the COVID vaccine in the current roll-out strategy, ensuring the health and safety of all our teachers, students and public school communities will be maximised by teachers being vaccinated as a priority."
In light of the situation unfolding across the border, the Victorian president of the Australian Education Union (AEU), Meredith Peace called on the federal government to prioritise education staff.
"We acknowledge that community members who are the most vulnerable to COVID-19 must continue to be prioritised, as well as workers in priority groups," Ms Peace said.
"However, there is an immediate need to broaden the eligibility of priority groups to include education staff."
Ahead of the fourth lockdown which began last week, the AEU held an audience with the federal and state health ministers, asking that all workers in schools, kindergartens, TAFE and disability learning services be made a priority group.
"Prioritising these essential workers for vaccination would be an effective way to reduce the disruptions that inevitably arise during periods of lockdown," Ms Peace said.
"Unless education staff are able to have priority access to a vaccine, we continue to be at risk of more disruptions to the on-site education of our students, especially in schools and TAFEs."
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