School students who had COVID-19 report stigma and bullying. How can we stop it?

Posted on August 24, 2021 by particularkev

Brian Moore, Charles Sturt University and Stuart Woodcock, Griffith UniversityQueensland school students have reportedly been bullied after being diagnosed with COVID-19 and have struggled to return to school as a result. The Queensland Department of Education stated it hasn’t heard of any bullying related to the COVID-19 outbreak. Given the nature of bullying, this isn’t necessarily surprising.

Stigma related to being diagnosed with COVID-19 has the potential for school students to be devalued, rejected and excluded. This is synonymous with bullying and may reflect students looking for someone to blame for the impacts of COVID-19 on their lives.

Bullying is often misunderstood. It’s a specific type of aggression that occurs repeatedly, is harmful and involves an imbalance of power. This behaviour could include verbal, physical and indirect or social bullying (which arguably includes cyber-bullying). It’s often unclear who should take on the responsibility of acting on bullying.

All types of bullying, especially indirect and social bullying, are often hidden. As a result, bullying can be very difficult to identify and address – even more so in the case of online behaviour and cyber-bullying. This lack of visibility probably explains why the Queensland Department of Education hasn’t heard reports of bullying.

How is the pandemic a factor?

Being empowered is not something we generally think about with school students. Youth are typically at the whims of other people’s power. The ongoing uncertainty, restrictions and lockdowns due to COVID-19 seem likely to reinforce this lack of power and control.

Coping with stress and school or study-related problems were already the most common concerns reported by Australian adolescents. During the COVID-19 pandemic, young people have experienced increased stress. They may be especially vulnerable to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression during lockdowns.

These impacts might lead to some students seeking to exert power and control by bullying other students in relation to being diagnosed with COVID-19. This could be one problematic way students attempt to cope with their situation.

However, this may or may not be the case. Bullying is a complex behaviour. We simply don’t know enough about the COVID-positive students being bullied and there may be a broader context to these reports.

For example, there may be a history of bullying that parents, teachers and schools are unaware of. This is especially the case with indirect, social and cyber-bullying.

Bullying can cause lasting harm

The impacts of bullying are relatively clear. Bullying and emotional abuse are a significant concern for young people. It’s a common experience, which can have long-term negative impacts on mental health and overall wellbeing.

Bullying can result in feelings of rejection, exclusion, isolation and low self-esteem. Bullying appears to be linked to serious mental health issues like depression.

However, it’s less clear how to intervene successfully when bullying occurs.

Why is it so hard to overcome?

Anti-bullying approaches are the main way schools deal with bullying. While these approaches claim strong support, the actual evidence for them varies considerably.

Some anti-bullying interventions which focus on universal, whole-school approaches reduce bullying. However, other approaches often achieve no reduction. Even more concerning, some result in increases in bullying.

Bullying behaviour is often presented as a simplistic relationship between “victim” and “bully”. This is problematic, as bullying is a complex cyclical relationship.

Behaviours exist when they’re useful. Given that bullying occurs across human cultures, it’s interesting to consider whether and how bullying benefits some people. If it does, simply saying we don’t accept bullying may not be an effective solution.

Another way of thinking about bullying is that it’s a way of describing power imbalances in relationships. Providing school students, parents and teachers with an understanding of this might be a valuable way forward.

So, what should schools and parents do?

This is a difficult question to answer. It often falls to teachers and schools to act on bullying that occurs both within and outside school.

Schools are certainly part of the solution, as they’re an important part of all students’ social world. But it should be emphasised that schools are only a part of the solution to bullying.

Schools can contribute to breaking down COVID-related stigma, but we need to be conscious that schools and teachers are not medical professionals and that the stigma reflects broader community concerns. A systemic approach involving schools, medical professionals and students’ families is more likely to have a positive effect.

Schools use a range of strategies to support students being bullied. These include:

using a consistent whole-of-school approach
providing education about bullying
focusing on prosocial behaviour such as co-operating with others to achieve common goals
providing access to mental health support where appropriate.

Where students have experienced bullying after contracting COVID-19, schools might supplement these approaches by reinforcing health advice that medical professionals have provided. This is a teachable moment, but teachers aren’t health experts, and medical professionals aren’t education experts. Reinforcing official health advice will have more face value and be more difficult to dismiss.

Parents and caregivers should talk with their children about bullying and normalise their feelings and concerns about COVID-19. As with schools, there is a need to reinforce the health advice from medical professionals. Look after your child’s basic mental health – like sleep, diet and physical activity – and seek help if you need to.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.

Brian Moore, Lecturer, School of Education, Charles Sturt University and Stuart Woodcock, Associate Professor, School of Education and Professional Studies, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

School students at the heart of a COVID outbreak change the story of how it spreads

Posted on August 9, 2021 by particularkev

Naomi Barnes, Queensland University of TechnologyThe central role of schools in the Brisbane COVID-19 outbreak means the virus might move through the community differently from previous outbreaks. Previously, the focus has been on the spread of the virus through the aged care sector and via service workers. People in education systems move and interact differently.

Sociology can provide a useful lens for understanding how the virus is moving. The type of insight sociologists can give is an organised story behind the contact tracing list based on their knowledge of how the sector at the centre of an outbreak works. Epidemiologists and policymakers can then draw on these systematic stories to help communicate the transmission risks and manage public responses to their decision-making.

An analysis of the Queensland contract tracing list shows many of the exposure sites are typical of school children travelling on public transport. Their families are also driving them around to attend social, medical and educational activities after school.

How do children change the spread?

Sociological network analyses can methodically explain the nuances and dynamism of how the virus will move differently via children compared to adults. It will move differently again for university and TAFE students and teenagers.

For example, primary school children are more likely to move through multiple sites after school. Sporting lessons and care outside school hours (categories of multiple exposure sites on the list) mean children could move from one big group to another big group.

A teenager will move differently again. Teenagers are more likely to move independently to and from school, their after-school activities and home. They use public transport more than younger children do, bringing them into contact with larger groups than in the family car. They also congregate in places like shopping centres to do things teens like to do: shop, share food and canoodle.

Families, especially those with more than one child, have after-school activities in varied places, hugely multiplying possible exposure sites. Children will encounter more people than an adult who goes to the shops, gym or takeaway after work. But an adult may be a parent and have the child, who has been in multiple big groups through the day, with them.

School contacts extend far and wide

Currently, there are nine Brisbane schools at the centre of the spread of the Delta variant of the virus. Many of these schools are connected via postcode. But postcode does not tell the whole story.

The more concerning narrative is that these schools are connected systemically. For example, Brisbane Grammar School boys will most likely have sisters at Brisbane Girls Grammar. The primary school, Ironside State School, is a feeder school for many affected schools. In other words, primary school children have older siblings at the high schools.

Many of the schools are also independent schools that children commute to from all over Brisbane. This means the single child or set of siblings at one school affected by the virus could very easily move the virus outside the area. On the contact tracing list, we are seeing cases emerge not only in neighbouring suburbs but also in suburbs in completely different areas of Brisbane.

What does this mean for managing outbreaks?

This movement of the virus through the education system reveals a need to shift the decision-making about schools, teachers and examinations away from only how the virus might get into schools to also consider how the virus is getting out of schools.

Schools can manage social distancing, hand washing and mask wearing when the students are at school but cannot oversee those things out of school. No matter how careful a school is about its COVID-safe procedures, the Brisbane outbreak has shown that those who manage education spaces, like principals and teachers, cannot control all the variables. Public discussions that suggest they can is simply unreasonable and demoralising.

A sociological approach to COVID planning, especially network approaches, like I use, would support governments to make systematic decisions about the social sectors. Current decision-making processes have only considered the surface-level (though still important) purposes of schooling in society, like teaching, assessment and care during work hours. By considering the nuances and dynamic nature of school life, sociology can shed light on options for school closures, examinations, remote learning and schooling the children of essential workers.

Thank you to sociologist Dr Mark Bahnisch for support on this article.

Naomi Barnes, Senior Lecturer, School of Teacher Education & Leadership, Queensland University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Rapid antigen testing isn’t perfect. But it could be a useful part of Australia’s COVID response

Posted on August 1, 2021 by particularkev

Deborah Williamson, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and Sharon Lewin, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and ImmunitySince the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 testing in Australia has been performed using highly sensitive PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests.

But this conventional model of testing, which involves swabbing by a health-care professional and transporting samples to a laboratory for analysis, has important bottlenecks. Recent reports indicate people have been waiting several hours just to have a swab taken.

With the current COVID outbreaks in Australia, there’s been a renewed focus on alternative testing methods to PCR — in particular rapid antigen testing.

New South Wales this week announced it would begin using rapid antigen tests in schools to allow year 12 students to return to the classroom safely, as well as in essential workplaces.

So what are rapid antigen tests, are they effective, and what role should they play in Australia’s response to COVID-19?

What are antigen tests?

Antigen tests detect protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) directly from a sample taken with a swab inserted into the nose.

Because antigen tests do not amplify parts of the virus’ genetic code, they are less sensitive than PCR tests.

The main advantages of antigen tests over PCR tests include their lower cost and their speed. Most antigen tests are designed to be used at the point of care, with results available in about 15 minutes. They cost roughly A$5 to A$20 per test.

How effective are they?

In countries such as the United Kingdom and United States, antigen tests have been used widely to complement PCR testing during the pandemic.

So far, the strongest published evidence to support the use of antigen tests is in symptomatic people within the first few days of their symptoms starting, when the amount of virus in nasal secretions is highest.

In other words, antigen tests are most accurate when the viral load is highest and when a person is likely to be most infectious. If an antigen test is taken either too early or too late in the course of infection, it may not detect the virus.

There are conflicting data on the performance of antigen tests in people without symptoms. A Cochrane review looking at results across several studies found the sensitivity of antigen tests (the likelihood of a positive result if someone is infected with the virus) was between 40% and 74% in people without symptoms. So a fair proportion of people tested may receive a negative test when they really have the virus.

With this in mind, compared to a “one-off” antigen test, repeated antigen testing (for example, daily) may improve the detection of virus, particularly in people who don’t have symptoms, or when there’s a low level of disease in the community.

Importantly, “real-world” overseas studies looking at antigen testing have varied widely in the types of tests it was compared with, the populations tested, and how much disease was circulating in the community at the time of the study.

This means it’s very hard to extrapolate information from overseas directly to Australia.

We need to trial rapid antigen testing in Australia to get reliable local information

The Therapeutics Goods Administration has so far approved 20 rapid antigen tests for use in Australia.

But antigen tests can only be supplied to accredited laboratories, medical practitioners, health-care professionals working in residential and aged-care facilities, or health departments. The commercial supply of COVID-19 antigen kits for self-testing at home is prohibited.

One way we could properly evaluate the use of antigen tests in Australia is through a series of clinical trials.

These could include trials of returning travellers undertaking daily self-testing in home quarantine, or repeated testing of groups of workers in potentially high-risk workplaces (for example, food distribution centres, construction sites or aged care).

Lessons from HIV

A precedent for community-based self-testing for an infectious disease in Australia is HIV. There were initially concerns the antibody test used for home HIV testing was not sensitive enough, and not as good as the gold standard laboratory test. There were also concerns people wouldn’t know how to deal with a positive test.

But the implementation of HIV self-testing over the past couple of years has been broadly successful. Education campaigns help people understand the limitations of the test, while there are effective processes in place to support people who return a positive result.

Although COVID-19 and HIV are very different diseases, the HIV experience offers useful lessons on how to implement home testing for a high-impact disease in a low-prevalence setting, while ensuring testing is accessible and convenient for all, including marginalised groups.

A woman collects a nasal swab on herself. — Other countries have been using rapid antigen tests as part of their COVID response.
Shutterstock

It’s not perfect, but it could be useful

One fundamental proviso for the use of widespread antigen testing is that we have to be prepared to accept a degree of risk. We know these tests are less sensitive than the current diagnostic “gold standard”, meaning it’s almost certain they will miss some cases of COVID-19.

PCR testing undoubtedly underpins our high-quality laboratory response to COVID-19 in Australia. But our capacity to sustain PCR testing at the level we will eventually need for communities to function normally and for international borders to reopen is uncertain.

We urgently need pragmatic real-world trials of new testing strategies to help us understand how best to return to a “COVID-normal” life.

Deborah Williamson, Professor of Microbiology, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity and Sharon Lewin, Director, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, The University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital and Consultant Physician, Department of Infectious Diseases, Alfred Hospital and Monash University, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Stressed out, dropping out: COVID has taken its toll on uni students

Posted on December 18, 2020 by particularkev

Susan Harris Rimmer, Griffith University; Kate McGuire, Griffith University, and Neeraj Gill, Griffith University

It’s a tough time to be a university student. Amid a global pandemic, overstretched mental health services and sweeping university staff cuts, students have had to attend classes and hand in assignments while juggling work, family and finances. For international students, isolation, cultural differences and extra expenses added to their worries.

Unsurprisingly, university enrolments have plummeted. While COVID-19 has taken a toll on everyone’s mental health – Beyond Blue reported a 66% increase in demand for its services in April compared to 2019 – it’s a massive concern for many young people. Yet tertiary students have been largely overlooked.

To counter the looming mental health crisis and improve student retention, federal and state governments must respond to the needs of these students beyond spouting platitudes and advising them to exercise, drink water and think positively.

Under pressure before the pandemic

Here are the facts: about 60% of university students are aged between 15 and 24. Suicide is the leading cause of death in this age group. One in four young people experience depression or anxiety in any one year.

The average wait time for a first therapy session at a Headspace centre – a government-funded youth mental health program – is 25.5 days. Many don’t reach out at all because of the stigma surrounding mental health, privacy concerns, lack of time and financial constraints.

And 2020 made life harder

Then COVID-19 struck.

This pandemic has increased youth unemployment, added to academic stress and made it harder for students to follow self-care routines – the daily habits that are vital to good mental health and well-being. More students than ever are at risk and the mental health system might not be able to cope.

After COVID-19 restrictions took effect, the unemployment rate of students aged 15-24 who study full-time increased by up to 12% in June compared to 2019. Their participation rate – the proportion employed or actively looking for work – fell by 21% in May compared to 2019.

Financial pressures associated with job losses can increase the risk of mental health problems. Particularly at risk are international students who were excluded from JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments and isolated from their families and support networks. International students may also face challenges seeking assistance due to stigma, language and cultural barriers and financial issues.

Challenges increased at uni too

Students have also had to adapt to online learning. Many universities still haven’t gone back to in-person classes. Online videos replaced lecture halls, despite students being told pre-COVID that attending in-person lectures was vital, with lower attendance linked to poorer results.

Some universities did adopt measures to help minimise the impact of COVID on student grades. Even so, the sweeping staff cuts at several universities will have impacts on learning outcomes.

Academic success is harder to achieve than ever and the stakes are high, especially when you might be paying thousands of dollars per course. Bad grades reduce your future employability and repeating courses affects when you graduate.

Stay active, eat healthily and reach out when you need help is the traditional mental health advice doled out to first-year students. But in 2020, when the gyms closed and you couldn’t go out with your friends, it wasn’t that simple.

Isolated young woman staring out of window — Enforced social isolation made it hard for many students to follow the routines that maintain good mental health.
Adam Nieścioruk/Unsplash

Most universities do offer some mental health support services. However, these vary between institutions and were already overstretched before the pandemic. While a new framework released by youth mental health research centre Orygen is a promising start, it is yet to be implemented.

The support available to students can be overly reliant on self-help methods or involve long wait times. During COVID, many of these services have gone online, which raises concerns about efficacy and privacy.

Domestic students are eligible for a government-subsidised mental health plan, but the public system faces many of the same issues as university services. International students must pay the full cost.

With the challenges 2020 has thrown at students, it’s no surprise tertiary enrolments fell. Enrolments for 20-to-24-year-olds were down by 66,100 students from 2019. The loss of fee revenue has already undermined the university sector.

The implications for gender equity are also serious, as those who dropped out were overwhelmingly women.

We can do more to help

So it is a tough time to be a university student, but does it have to be? Solutions have already been proposed. In June, a Productivity Commission inquiry report called for:

expanded online mental health services for tertiary students
increased data collection
greater support for international students
legislative amendments requiring all tertiary institutions to have a student mental health and well-being strategy.

In September, the Australian Human Rights Commission recommended:

more investment in youth-focused mental health services
more government support for educational institutions to deliver quality online learning
making youth employment a key focus of the economic recovery.

Other measures such as psychological support services on campus, university-run guidance programs, greater flexibility regarding workloads and reassurance that students won’t be discriminated against due to mental illness would also help.

If the government were to adopt any of these suggestions it would be a step in the right direction. However, despite the dire consequences of mishandling this issue, it remains to be seen whether the government will step up and support universities and the mental health of students.

Susan Harris Rimmer, Professor and Director of the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith Business School, Griffith University; Kate McGuire, Research Assistant, Griffith University, and Neeraj Gill, Associate Professor and Clinical Lead, Mental Health, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Is learning more important than well-being? Teachers told us how COVID highlighted ethical dilemmas at school

Posted on November 11, 2020 by particularkev

Daniella J. Forster, University of Newcastle

As an educational ethicist, I research teachers’ ethical obligations. These can include their personal ethics such as protecting students from harm, respect for justice and truth, and professional norms like social conformity, collegial loyalty and personal well-being.

Moral tensions in schools can come about when certain categories of norms conflict with each other. For example, sometimes students’ best interests are pitted against available resources. These present difficult decisions for the teacher, the school community and its leaders.

As part of a global study on educational ethics during the pandemic, I conducted focus groups with Australian childcare, preschool, primary and secondary school teachers to find out what ethical issues were most pressing for them.

Below are three ways in which the pandemic highlighted existing tensions between ethical priorities.

1. Student well-being versus learning

The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers emphasise student well-being is important to learning. But they note teachers’ main priority is making sure the student learns at their stage of the Australian National Curriculum.

During COVID, this flipped and well-being took precedence. A primary school teacher told me:

It’s the first time in my teaching career where the learning became a low priority, and well-being took over … if we could keep them chugging along, that was good enough.

An Aboriginal-identifying teacher who shared their strong cultural background with students said:

… a lot of the Aboriginal students … didn’t have access to … resources. And so there was already this disconnect that became even wider by the time they had to learn from home … Some students were not able to complete the work that I was putting on the online forum because they were caring for little brothers and sisters when they were at home … or home life was extremely volatile …

A secondary school teacher said:

There were certain students that we were made aware of by the well-being coordinators that we weren’t to make contact with. If there were more extenuating circumstances in the life of the child then we weren’t to … exacerbate that by sending emails home about them not completing work …

Some teachers found it particularly difficult to identify students at heightened risk and to put in place their duty of care requirements.

A public primary school principal in a low socioeconomic area said:

We had a couple of instances where we would have had more contact with family, community services and since (then) we have heard stories of what happened when the children weren’t coming to school … we would have made an instant call to DOCS [Department of Community Services], but because we weren’t having that day to day contact we didn’t know. A lot of those things were hidden, very serious issues.

2. Government policy versus staff well-being

Leading teachers and principals found the tension between their personal safety and that of their colleagues were often in conflict with a lag in institutional directives.

Textbooks, a mask and sanitiser on a teacher's desk. — Education departments often put out instructions long after principals felt the safety of their staff was compromised.
Shutterstock

For instance, on March 25 The NSW Teachers’ Federation urged the education department to immediately prioritise the safety of staff and students.

But the department took time to mandate social distancing measures, school closures and learning from home. In the meantime principals were on alert for risk management, anticipating directives for extensive social distancing, such as cancelling school assemblies, before being instructed to do so.

One public school principal said:

The federation is telling us this. The department is telling us that … I would make a decision and then a couple of weeks later … the department would come up with the same strict instructions … it was the well-being of the staff first for me … even to the point where we sent the kids home for the first week with no learning … the second that one child comes to school and catches COVID, then I’m not going to be able to live with myself.

But it wasn’t the same in all schools. A primary school teacher in a bushfire affected area reflected on the decisions made by the principal.

I’m trying to be diplomatic … We were very slow to engage with kids who were starting to be kept home from school. And we were very slow for teachers to be able to work from home and we were very quick to come back to … school … We have a parent who worked at the local high school saying, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ve been working at home all week’. We haven’t even been told that’s a possibility …

3. Personal well-being versus professional integrity

A teacher’s professional integrity is how they evaluate the alignment between the expectations of their role and their values. When a schism arises, it throws into question some core professional values.

One public school principal’s integrity had an extremely high bar.

I’ll be really honest, despite all of the warnings and all of the advice, my own well-being was my last priority. And the ethical dilemma for me was, I can’t look after myself because I’ve got so many other people to look after first, despite all the warnings, despite all the advice.

Teachers reported the personal cost of changing work arrangements into remote settings, concerned about how they were to fulfil their professional integrity to provide the kind of meaningful interactions students needed.

A secondary Catholic school teacher said:

Remote learning really threw me off balance and I struggled to find myself and how I fit into that situation … I had to learn to let go and … work out what is really important.

For the next generation of teachers, the dilemma was more about how to set boundaries in an emerging professional identity.

One early career public secondary teacher said:

I did go out of my way to with my Year 11s, them being my most senior year … Which did bring up the ethical thing … there were times I would get a message at one o’clock and I’d be up but I’d say, I’m not answering that, I’m not looking at it. I’m looking at it in the morning. That’s too much in each other’s heads. And, yeah, the barriers were tough.

An experienced secondary teacher in an International Baccalaureate school said:

I was working sending emails at midnight, and getting up three hours before my lessons to try and make sure that the platform is working … and obviously all my lessons that I plan had to be then turned into online lessons. So that takes a whole other weekend for everything … I got WhatsApp messages at all hours …

She said students sent her emails to thank her for the commitment. She realised it was a toxic message to send, and that implied this should be the norm for teachers. While teaching is a generous profession, COVID highlighted the expectations on their generosity.

Daniella J. Forster, Senior Lecturer, Educational ethics and philosophies, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Behind Victoria’s decision to open primary schools to all students: report shows COVID transmission is rare

Posted on September 28, 2020 by particularkev

Fiona Russell, University of Melbourne; Edward Kim Mulholland, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Kathleen Ryan, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Kathryn Snow, University of Melbourne; Margie Danchin, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and Sharon Goldfeld, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

At the weekend, Victorian Premier Dan Andrews announced all the state’s primary school kids would return to school for Term 4. This is an update from the previously planned staggered return to primary school, which would begin only with students in the early years — prep (first year) to Year 2.

The change was informed by our analysis of Victorian health and education department data on all cases and contacts linked to outbreaks at schools and early childhood education and care services (childcare and preschool).

We included data between January 25 (the date of the first known case in Victoria) and August 31.

Our analysis found children younger than 13 seem to transmit the virus less than teenagers and adults. In instances where the first case in a school was a child under 13, a subsequent outbreak (two or more cases) was uncommon. This finding played a key role in helping make the decision for primary school children to return to school.

Here is what else we found.

1. Outbreaks in childcare and schools are driven by community transmission

Infections linked to childcare, preschools and schools peaked when community transmission was highest in July, and declined in August. In addition, they were most common in the geographical areas where community transmission was also high.

This suggests infections in childcare, preschools and schools are driven primarily by transmission in the broader community. Controlling community transmission is key to preventing school outbreaks.

2. School infections are much lower than in the community

There were 1,635 infections linked with childcare, preschools and schools out of a total of 19,109 cases in Victoria (between January 25 and August 31).

Of 1 million students enrolled in all Victorian schools, 337 may have acquired the virus through outbreaks at school.

Of 139 staff and 373 students who may have acquired infection through outbreaks at childcare, preschools or schools, eight (four staff and four students) were admitted to hospital, and all recovered.

The infections in childcare, preschools and schools were very rarely linked to infections in the elderly, who are the most vulnerable to COVID-19.

3. Most infections in schools and childcare centres were well contained

Of all the outbreaks in Victorian childcare centres, preschools and schools, 66% involved only a single infection in a staff member or student and did not progress to an outbreak. And 91% involved fewer than ten cases.

Testing, tracing and isolation within 48 hours of a notification is the most important strategy to prevent an outbreak.

The majority of infections in childcare, preschools and schools were well contained with existing controls and rapid closure (within two days), contact tracing and cleaning.

4. Households are the main source of infection, not schools

The investigations of cases identified in schools suggest child-to-child transmission in schools is uncommon, and not the primary cause of infection in children. Household transmission has been consistently found to be the most common source of infection for children.

Closing schools should be a last resort

Based on our findings and a review of the international literature, we recommend prioritising childcare centres, preschools and schools to reopen and stay open to guarantee equitable learning environments — and to lessen the effects of school closures.

Children do transmit the virus and outbreaks can occur. But based on the international literature, this mostly happens when there are high rates of community transmission and a lack of adherence to mitigation measures (such as social distancing) at the school or childcare centre.

Childcare centres, preschools and schools play a critical role not only in providing education, but also offering additional support for vulnerable students.

With childcare centres and schools being closed, along with the additional economic and psychological stress on families, family conflict and violence has increased. This has led to many children and young people feeling unsafe and left behind in their education and suffering mental-health conditions.

Closing all schools as part of large-scale restrictions should be a last resort. This is especially the case for childcare centres, preschools and primary schools, as children in these age groups are less likely to transmit the virus, and be associated with an outbreak.

Now that community transmission in Victoria is so low, it’s time for all kids to go back to school.

The authors would like to thank their advisory committee from the Department of Education and Training and the Department of Health and Human Services. They would also like to thank outbreak epidemiologists at the DHHS and medical students Alastair Weng, Angela Zhu, Anthea Tsatsaronis, Benjamin Watson, Julian Loo Yong Kee, Natalie Commins, Nicholas Wu, Renee Cocks, Timothy O’Hare, and research assistant Kanwal Saleem, and Belle Overmars.

Fiona Russell, Principal research fellow, University of Melbourne; Edward Kim Mulholland, Professor, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Kathleen Ryan, Research Fellow, Asia-Pacific Health, Infection and Immunity Theme, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Kathryn Snow, Epidemiologist, University of Melbourne; Margie Danchin, Associate Professor, University of Melbourne, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and Sharon Goldfeld, Director, Center for Community Child Health Royal Children’s Hospital; Professor, Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne; Theme Director Population Health, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

4 out of 5 international students are still in Australia – how we treat them will have consequences

Posted on September 1, 2020 by particularkev

International students in Australia are actively comparing their situation during the pandemic with their peers in other countries.
Shutterstock

Angela Lehmann, Australian National University and Aasha Sriram, University of Melbourne

COVID-19 has not stopped international education. As of August 24, 524,000 international students were living among us in Australian cities and communities. They represent 78% of all student visa holders, according to data the Department of Home Affairs provided to us.

These students are potential ambassadors for Australia and our institutions. They could help shape our country’s reputation as a safe and welcoming destination in the post-pandemic world – but only if we look after them.

Pie chart and table showing numbers of international students in Australia and offshore — Data as of August 24 2020 provided by Department of Home Affairs, Author provided

The numbers of students now in Australia vary across sectors. Currently, 73% of our international higher education students and 78% of postgraduate research students are here. The vast majority — 78% — of our international secondary school students are still here too.

The percentage is even higher for vocational education and training (VET): 91% of the sector’s international students are here, 159,233 in all.

Non-award programs (shorter courses that don’t lead to a degree or diploma) and English language programs (ELICOS) have the largest percentages of students now offshore.

Table showing numbers and percentages of student visa holders still in Australia — Data provided by Department of Home Affairs at authors’ request, Author provided

The experiences these large numbers of students are having now will have a direct impact on their decisions and patterns of mobility once borders reopen.

However, institutions and government agencies continue to focus on outward-looking approaches to recovery, such as offshore recruitment and delivery, negotiating pilot safety corridors, and scenario planning for the reopening of borders. The onshore response to international education risks being severely neglected.

Students are comparing countries’ responses

International students in Australian cities and communities are of course talking about their situation. They are using social media, creating blogs and interacting constantly with families and friends back home and around the world.

During the pandemic, this peer-to-peer form of marketing is heightened in its global reach. Our students are constantly comparing their lives with students in both their home countries and Australia’s major competitor destinations.

As a result, the crisis of international student social support is the subject of global comparisons. Students and their families are weighing up what they are going through “here” compared to what others are going through “there”.

A life transformed in Melbourne

Arya is a full-time postgraduate student from India who is staying in Melbourne. We spoke with Arya as a part of a series of interviews with international students during COVID-19.

Her dream of studying in Australia was made possible through a combination of a student loan, borrowing from family, and savings after working for two years as a journalist. Prior to COVID-19, she relied on part-time jobs to support herself. This income was essential to her financial survival in Melbourne.

The first lockdown meant she lost both her jobs — one in hospitality and one at her university. As these sectors are struggling in this crisis, her prospect of finding a new job is bleak.

Arya is not eligible for federal government support such as JobSeeker. But she might be able to get Victorian government support, including a voucher to buy groceries and a one-off payment of A$1,100. She can also apply for a modest grant from her university to cover some bills.

She has struggled to pay rent, but the moratorium on evictions has prevented her from becoming homeless. Her university and local community groups in Melbourne have also provided food hampers.

Arya’s goal was to study in Australia at a world-class institution and solidify her status within the upwardly mobile middle classes in India. Her life has been transformed into a struggle to eat, pay rent and avoid homelessness while keeping her grades up. Arya observes:

It is becoming more than an education. The question is shifting to how students live and survive in a global city midst a pandemic.

It’s even harder in the US

Arya is in contact with friends and fellow Indian students studying overseas. While her situation in Melbourne is dire, her friends in the US are struggling every day. Arya introduced us to Dhanya.

Dhanya, who moved to New York in 2017 to study, says she is struggling “despite doing everything right”. After recently graduating and finding a job, Dhanya lost her H1B sponsored visa for skilled workers as a result of the Trump administration’s recent freeze on visas. “The US government has not considered that we can’t get home,” Dhanya says.

She reports that she and many of her friends in similar situations have been told they can choose to work as unpaid interns.

Many American states enacted a patchwork of temporary eviction moratoriums and the federal government issued a partial ban on evictions. These moratoriums have now largely expired, forcing students to rely on the discretion of landlords. As a non-citizen, Dhanya cannot receive unemployment benefits or a stimulus cheque.

Dhanya is unaware of any non-monetary support from her university or the government for international students. There are no free meal plans, grocery vouchers, or community-based food schemes.

Despite our Melbourne-based student living with the daily anxiety about her finances, she is comparing her experience relatively positively to her friends in the US.

Some countries are enhancing reputations

Students are paying attention to countries that are including international students and temporary migrants in their social policy response to COVID-19. Arya says:

The way countries handle this now is definitely going to impact how students see your country as a destination in the future.

Arya and her friends are keeping a keen eye on European destinations such as Germany and Sweden. They have also been impressed by Canada’s timely support for international students during this crisis.

It is not enough for Australia to rely on other nations doing badly on social welfare and support. We need to do more than aim to receive a comparatively “good” score on poverty, exploitation and vulnerability based on others doing worse.

Australia urgently needs to actively reshape international education market perceptions by demonstrating that we offer not only world-class education, but also world-class student support. And that starts with helping the cohort of more than half-a-million international students who currently call Australia home.

Angela Lehmann, Honorary Lecturer, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University and Aasha Sriram, Research Assistant, Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘No one would even know if I had died in my room’: coronavirus leaves international students in dire straits

Posted on August 16, 2020 by particularkev

Alan Morris, University of Technology Sydney; Catherine Hastings, University of Technology Sydney; Emma Mitchell, University of Technology Sydney; Gaby Ramia, University of Sydney, and Shaun Wilson, Macquarie University

Many international students in private rental housing in Sydney and Melbourne were struggling before COVID-19 hit. Our surveys of these students before and during the pandemic show it has made their already precarious situations much worse.

Of those with paid work when the pandemic began, six in ten lost their jobs. Many were struggling to pay rent and tuition fees.

Our new report is based on two surveys* of several thousand students. To track financial distress, we developed eight indicators from Australian Bureau of Statistics measures for the first survey in late 2019. We used these again for the second survey in mid-2020. The responses are shown below.

Chart showing indicators of financial distress among international students — Author provided

Since the lockdown, students’ responses showed:

29% of respondents had gone without meals (up from 22% prior to lockdown)
26% had pawned or sold something to obtain money (up from 12%)
23% had had trouble paying for electricity on time (up from 11%)
23% had asked community organisations for help (up from 4%).

Our 2019 survey showed about one in five international students in the private rental sector were already in precarious housing situations. The second survey revealed far more were living precariously because of deteriorating finances during the pandemic.

This article also draws on 26 semi-structured interviews with students to share fresh insights into how they have coped as the pandemic unfolded in Sydney and Melbourne.

Incomes from work and family lost

The central financial issue has been loss of income during the pandemic. Just 15% of students who’d lost jobs had found a new one. Almost two-thirds (63%) of those who still had a job had had their hours cut, most by about 50%.

At the same time, financial support from families decreased for just over four in ten students. Only 12% said it had increased.

Before the pandemic, 50% of respondents reported an income below A$500 a week; after it began, 70% did.

Struggling to pay the rent

Six in ten respondents agreed paying the rent had become more difficult. Since the pandemic, 27% said they were unable to pay the full rent. One in five agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “I feel I could become homeless.”

A VET student described the impact of losing her job on her finances:

I could really save some money in the month of February and March that really, you know, took me until the month of April. So, I was not really worried in April, but then as May started and nearly the middle of May, I was really worried about my account balance. I’d already given multiple calls to different organisations by then for any kind of support.

Half of our respondents reported trying to negotiate a rent reduction: 22% received a reduction and 31% received a reduction or a deferral. Almost half were unsuccessful. A university student from Melbourne outlined her failed attempt to reduce rent:

Yeah, we are worrying [about paying the rent] and like we emailed to our agency to make discount or something like that, but they said it’s hard for them, an agency and landlord too, because the landlord has a mortgage […] and everybody’s struggling and so for now they don’t have any discount […] so we are worried because before that, before this current thing [the pandemic], we had our part-time jobs and the three of us have now lost our jobs.

Two students sitting at a table together and working out a problem — In some share houses, all the students have lost their jobs and don’t know how they’ll pay the rent.
Shutterstock

A vocational education and training (VET) student from Sydney, who lost her job in March, described how she was treated when she couldn’t pay the full rent:

So I was not able to pay my full rent [… ]because of that they [the agent] were like, ‘Okay, don’t pay rent if you don’t have any money, we’ll understand.’ […] Then all of a sudden by mid-April they were like, ‘Hey, you have this much outstanding rent and you have to pay it immediately, otherwise the landlord is going to file the case to the tribunal.’ And I was shocked, and it was out of nowhere, and I told them, ‘You were the one who told me you didn’t have to pay rent if you don’t have it.‘

Studies and well-being suffer too

Students are struggling on several fronts. One student remarked:

Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s hard sometimes so that I’m not sleeping and then you have to do school work as well and then you have to think about these things like managing, talking to agents every day and negotiating and searching for jobs. There’s just a lot of things coming together.

Six in ten respondents agreed or strongly agreed financial stress was affecting their studies. Over half (54%) reported financial difficulties and 44% worried they might not be able to pay tuition fees.

I’ve also been trying to get fees reduction but every time it has always been like a negative response. So it has actually been pretty difficult […] especially with we’re not getting the same quality of education.

Just over a third (35%) worried they might have to leave Australia before completing their studies.

Respondents did not feel governments had supported them. State government support was rated good or excellent by 17%, and only 13% felt that way about federal government support.

One university student said:

In this current pandemic the Australian government has made it more clear that they don’t really care about the [international] students. I don’t know why is that. It’s pretty much heartbreaking considering the input of them in the Australian economy.

Loneliness on the rise

Loneliness was already a significant problem and it has worsened during the pandemic. Just under a third of respondents said they felt lonely before the pandemic, but 63% felt lonelier since the pandemic.

A university student in Sydney said:

I think no one would even know if I had died in my room if it wasn’t for a month when my landlady would come and ask for rent. Other than that, no one would even know.

Our research is revealing just how precarious the lives of international students have become. Policymakers should heed the evidence and consider how to make Australia a better place to study.

* The first survey was distributed by 43 educational institutions (24 VET, ten universities, seven English language and two foundation course institutions) to their international students in late 2019. It received 7,084 responses. The second was distributed in June-July 2020 to 3,114 respondents of the first survey who had agreed to face-to-face interviews and to be recontacted. The second survey received 852 responses.

Alan Morris, Professor, Institute of Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney; Catherine Hastings, Assistant Researcher, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney; Emma Mitchell, Assistant Researcher, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney; Gaby Ramia, Associate Professor in Public Policy, Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney, and Shaun Wilson, Associate Professor of Sociology, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Every Victorian Year 12 student will have COVID-19 factored into their grade — we should do it for all Australian students

Posted on August 15, 2020 by particularkev

Ilana Finefter-Rosenbluh, Monash University; Christine Grové, Monash University, and Kelly-Ann Allen, Monash University

Over the weekend, Victorian Education Minister, James Merlino, announced the individual impact of COVID-19 will be taken into account for every Year 12 student in the state when calculating their VCE score and ATAR.

Under usual circumstances, individual students are assessed for special consideration on a case by case basis. But this year, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) will introduce a “Consideration of Educational Disadvantage” process to recalculate VCE scores for every student, individually.

The authority may consider, alongside a range of formal data such as exam results, a student’s General Achievement Test (GAT), their expected achievement levels before the impact of coronavirus, and school assessments completed prior to remote and flexible learning.

At the heart of these announcements is an acknowledgement of individual differences. The premier’s website says it may also include

assessing the individual impact of coronavirus on each student, including school closures, direct impacts on the health of a student, students dealing with substantial extra family responsibilities, ongoing issues with remote learning and mental health challenges.

This kind of individual assessment is what educational advocates have been calling on for decades.

How COVID-19 has affected students

Victoria’s decision is intended to support worried students and soften the blow of the graduation implications complicated by the pandemic. Its social, emotional and psychological effects are being recognised alongside academic pressures.

Teachers and school leaders have put forth their best efforts to ensure all students have transitioned to online learning effectively. But the unexpected change may have led already vulnerable students, such as from lower socio-economic backgrounds who may not have reliable access to internet, towards further disadvantage.

Students already disengaged from school may have become more disengaged during remote learning. Teachers who completed a survey in Australia during the last remote learning period said many of their students were not logging in to remote classes or completing their school work. Teacher participants in another survey said student disengagement and equity were a key concern.

Teachers have also expressed concern about the emotional toll of remote learning on students.

Not all students have experienced adversity as a result of COVID-19. There are many who have thrived in home learning environments. Students who would typically experience social or separation anxiety resulting in school refusal, for instance, have found the online way of learning works better.

The initiatives taken by governments, such as the latest Victorian announcement, acknowledge the necessity to go beyond dry numbers and to account for individual differences — a step towards a more inclusive education.

It’s a human right

The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals establish the core underpinnings of quality education. Specifically, goal number four is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.

Inclusive education is where all students of all capabilities have the opportunity to learn and express their abilities. Inclusion takes into account student circumstances, such as individual learning needs and health. These include well-being and behavioural challenges.

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) committee has noted:

education has to be flexible so it can adapt to the needs of changing societies and communities and respond to the needs of students within their diverse social and cultural settings.

How can we do this?

Studies show teachers see school assessment as isolated, offering a limited understanding of the teaching and learning environment. Including as many aspects as possible in assessment processes seems to be more important now than ever. This might involve harnessing student perspectives or inviting parents into the conversation regarding their child’s progress.

Policymakers will assure student equity by providing clear grading guidelines. These can include acknowledgement of the need for special examination arrangements not only during a pandemic. They could enable the support of a health-care worker during a test, for instance.

Universities could also work with secondary schools and agree to consider entrance exams or portfolios that are relevant to the courses students are applying for.

Some people may be concerned the government proposal will not result in fair outcomes across the board. But for assessment to be truly fair, each student must receive the individual level of support they need.

The unfolding developments of the pandemic have opened a door for a more inclusive assessment in schools. Perhaps it is time to reconsider this practice beyond the special circumstances of an outbreak and beyond VCE students, to include all year 12 students this year, and every year.

Ilana Finefter-Rosenbluh, Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Monash University; Christine Grové, Senior Lecturer and Educational and Developmental Psychologist, Monash University, and Kelly-Ann Allen, Educational and Developmental Psychologist and Senior Lecturer, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Victoria’s Year 12 students are learning remotely. But they won’t necessarily fall behind

Posted on August 7, 2020 by particularkev

Sarah Prestridge, Griffith University and Donna Pendergast, Griffith University

In early July, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced government school students in prep to Year 10 — in Metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire —would learn from home for term three. Students in Years 11 and 12, as well as those in Year 10 attending VCE or VCAL classes, and students with special needs, would learn face to face.

The exemption for students doing VCE subjects to go class was made to ensure the least amount of disruption to the final years of schooling.

From today, however, after the announcement of harsher, Stage 4 restrictions for metropolitan Melbourne and Stage 3 restrictions for the rest of Victoria, students in Years 11 and 12 will learn remotely with every other student in the state.

So, will remote learning at the end of schooling mean Victorian students will fall behind the rest of the country?

Setting up Year 12s for further learning

Year 12 marks the end of school and the shift to work and further education for most students.

The Year 12 journey is sprinkled with milestones and rites of passage: the school formal, leadership opportunities, gaining independence with a new driver’s license and for many, turning 18 and being regarded as an adult.

In classrooms, learning is highly regulated by the teacher. Whereas in vocational education and training, and university, learning is rapidly moving to a more online, independent, mode. Even before the pandemic, post-school education required students to be more self-directed learners than they were at school.

This year’s Year 12 students won’t experience many common milestones and rites of passage. But many will have gained significant experiences of learning online, and independently — beyond what they ordinarily would have — which will set them up for similar learning beyond school.

The chance to develop online learning capabilities while being supported by their school teachers will give Year 12s learning remotely a real advantage.

Year 12s like learning independently

We conducted a survey of students who experienced remote schooling during March and April this year at an independent school in Queensland. Overall 1,032 students completed the survey, across prep to Year 12.

Just over 41% of students, overall, said they found learning at home stressful. But this was generally not the case for students in Year 12. Year 12 students were keen for the flexibility to learn at their own pace, and being free to determine the order of study each week, rather than follow a timetable set by the school.

Younger students find remote learning more stressful than do Year 12s.
Shutterstock

Year 12 students said they preferred to concentrate on one subject a day and to work intensely.

Generally Year 12 students said they disliked live video sessions and found them disruptive to their study flow. While 75% of Grade 7 students valued form class or home room live sessions, only 16% of Grade 12 students did. They preferred to spend their time focusing on given subject materials.

Is online learning inferior to face to face?

Studies have suggested online learning is likely to be less effective than classroom education over the longer-term. But there is also evidence to suggest the impact may be negligible in the short term.

Other studies suggest there is no significant difference in learning outcomes between students in distance education (when students live too far from the school to attend in person) and face-to-face learning.

But there are significant variations in outcomes within each approach. This means a student’s ability to learn online, the design of the online learning environment and even the amount of time needed for students to get familiar with learning online can affect their outcomes.

Students have been conditioned for over 12 years to learn in classrooms from a teacher. This can make it difficult for them to become familiar with new ways of learning.

A major issue associated with online learning is a student’s ability to regulate themselves. This means being able to stay on task especially when a problem arises. Being unfamiliar with new ways of accessing and interpreting online environments and subject content, as well as working with peers online in communication spaces, presents new challenges for students.

However, the problem may again have to do with age. In our survey, mentioned above, 75% Year 12 students believed they were able to work through a problem productively online. This was higher than the other high-school year levels.

Tips for Year 12 students

There are many advantages to learning online. Students can work at their own pace, revise and review teacher made videos for examples, and engage with extensive notes and study guides to help with assessment and exams.

Students can also access their teachers in more varied ways and at different times of day. In other words, moving online for Year 12 students can provide a world of resources and access to teachers they have not experienced before.

To make the most of their Year 12 experience, students should keep these simple tips in mind:

organise your learning week. Set up your own timetable of tasks to complete. Include breaks and time to relax
be an active learner. Make notes while listening to teacher made videos and written materials
contact a friend if you have a problem, and work through the issue together
use the communication tools available to tell your teachers and friends what you are thinking about
participate in live sessions and forums as much as you can.

Correction: this article previously had an incorrect statement about ATAR calculation. This has now been removed.

Sarah Prestridge, Senior Lecturer, Griffith University and Donna Pendergast, Dean, School of Educational and Professional Studies, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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