Future of ACT school rapid testing unclear as teachers raise workload concerns

Schools have received their week three and four supplies of two tests per staff member and student but a government spokeswoman said a decision on the future of the COVID-19 surveillance program would be made next week.

Australian Education Union ACT branch secretary Patrick Judge said there had been a lot of challenges around the distribution of the rapid tests, which requires school staff to spend hours repacking kits to give to students.

"Teachers were already telling us their workloads were too high. We don't have capacity to keep adding to their workload," Mr Judge said.

However, the beginning of term had gone better than expected from the union's perspective with schools managing teacher absences with a central pool of relief teachers.

Mr Judge said rapid antigen tests had been an effective measure.

"People are testing positive and not coming to school. Without it, we might not be in the position we're in."

Independent Education Union NSW/ACT branch acting secretary Carol Matthews said it would be premature to make a call to end the distribution of rapid antigen tests after week four at this stage.

"We would certainly think the situation should be assessed at the end of week four to see how things are going and we would be reluctant for the possibility of additional tests just ceasing at that time."

READ MORE:

Ms Matthews said while members were excited to be back at school, the union was still flooded with questions relating to COVID safety.

"I think it's still an area of a lot of concern amongst school staff, and I'm sure parents as well, even though it appears that the general number of cases in their community is dropping."

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said on Tuesday it was "unlikely" that rapid antigen testing in schools would continue beyond the end of February.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said ACT health officials would be working with New South Wales and Victoria on school arrangements beyond week four but a decision hadn't been made yet.

"We're pretty confident in our supply of rapid antigen test beyond that period of time," she said.

ACT public schools initially distributed test by asking parents to drive by their school at specific times, however many working parents found it to be impractical.

Mr Judge said teachers and principals also raised safety concerns over traffic management around schools.

On Friday the ACT government said schools could give the tests directly to students to take home in their school bags in coming weeks.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: