Unvaccinated Victorian Teachers Set To Return To Classrooms After Mandate Lifted

Unvaccinated teachers, school staff, and childcare workers will be permitted to return to work, with the mandate requiring education staff to have received three doses scrapped from midnight on Friday.

Parents will not have the right to pull their children from classrooms if the teacher us unvaccinated and cannot ask for any teacher’s vaccinations status.

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Triple-vaccination requirements will remain in place in specialist schools.

Staff who were double-vaccinated but refused a third does were placed on leave without play but will be able to return to work at the school they were at last.

For the hundreds of staff who were sacked in April for refusing to have a single dose, they will have no right to return to their old school but will be able to apply for a job there or at another school.

In numbers, 351 unvaccinated staff from state schools were terminated in April and a further 280 staff were placed on leave without pay for refusal of a third dose.

The Department of Education and Training has briefed principals on how to coordinate their staff through the change of orders.

They were also informed that principals and school councils could not set their own requirements on staff vaccinations.  

Australian Education Union Victorian Branch President Meredith Peace told the Herald Sun teachers have always been encouraged to follow vaccination requirements and COVID-19 safety measures.

“With the change to these settings, it will be essential that DET ensures all workplaces have updated and implemented their Covid safe plan to meet their obligations to provide a safe workplace for their employees,” she said.

“This will provide for appropriate measures and precautions, including recommendations to wear masks, ensuring classrooms are properly ventilated, teaching outside and practising social distancing where practical, as well as encouraging staff to be vaccinated.”

As children enter the mid-year school holidays, the state will have to wait a couple of weeks before seeing the full reactions of removing the mandate.

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