Thousands of students have been forced to learn from home this week due to illness, self-isolation or a shortage of teachers struck down with Covid-19.
One in five public school students across NSW were absent from the classroom on Monday, down from 86 per cent attendance levels recorded in mid March.
The rise in cases has also sparked a shortage of teachers as 20 public schools ordered students to stay home on Monday due to staff being off sick.
The crisis extends to Catholic and independent schools, where under-staffed schools are putting on movies for large cohorts of students or have pressed pause on all face to face learning.
Thousands of students are not in the classroom this with due to Covid-19 and staff shortage (pictured, students at Sydney Secondary College)
Some staff have been left supervising three classes at the same time due to a shortage of casual teachers.
‘It can mean a secondary school teacher supervising a number of classes simultaneously from the corridor, it can mean students in the school hall watching films all day,’ Independent Education Union acting secretary Carol Matthews told the Daily Telegraph.
‘It is certainly impacting on teachers who are exhausted covering the classes of absent colleagues.’
Brigidine College on Sydney’s upper north shore has cancelled all face to face learning until next week.
At Cronulla High School in Sydney’s south, more than a dozen teachers were unable to attend scheduled parent-teacher interviews this week due to Covid.
The school has seen an increase of cases since the recent removal of mask mandates.
One in five public school students across NSW were absent from the classroom on Monday
‘The infection and close contacts of the teachers, has, at times, seen our full-time and casual teachers stretched,’ the latest school newsletter states.
‘This has resulted in a small number of senior classes not being able to be covered. This is not ideal and it is something we will continue to try and avoid, but it will remain a challenge in this current climate.’
NSW recorded 19,183 new cases on Tuesday, up from 15,572 infections reported 24 hours earlier.
Health minister Brad Hazzard has ruled out easing isolation rules for close contacts as he believes the actual number of daily infections may be ‘at least 50 per cent higher’ than recorded.
‘Covid continues in very substantial numbers every day. We are seeing somewhere between 15 to 20,000 positive cases everyday and we think that’s a big underestimate. Because many people it would appear are not actually reporting the positive cases,’ he said on Tuesday.
A recent rise in Covid cases has forced thousands of students to return to home-schooling
