vaccine
© Andres Stapff / Reuters
Unvaccinated Year 12 students in NSW could be forced to stay home for two weeks during disease outbreaks under proposed changes to the Public Health Act.

If accepted, the proposed changes would force all school students from kindergarten to Year 12 to provide their school with a certificate showing they were vaccinated.

Students who failed to provide the information, or were not vaccinated, could be forced to stay home for up to two weeks if there was an outbreak of a serious disease.

Dr Vicky Sheppeard, director of communicable diseases with NSW Health, said the proposed rules would only apply on "very rare" occasions.

"The last time it happened was in 2012 when we had an outbreak of measles affecting high schools," she said.

"At that time, we didn't have powers that enabled us to exclude unvaccinated children to help control the outbreak."

"It's rarely used, but when there is a serious outbreak it's important that these powers are available so that we can control outbreaks as soon as possible."

The proposal was prompted by a review of the state's Public Health Act, and the recommendations are being provided to the Government for consideration.

If the changes are accepted, a bill will need to be drafted and then passed by Parliament.

Dr Sheppeard said in the event of a disease outbreak, students may be able to get a last minute jab to stay at school.

"If it can be discovered in time, the child can be offered vaccination, in which case if they had the vaccine then they wouldn't need to be excluded," she said.

"But if it was too late, or the family still refused vaccination, they could be excluded for up to two weeks while the outbreak is controlled."

Two weeks' time out 'disruptive': principal

Similar laws are already in place for children in kindergarten and enrolling in primary school in NSW.

Currently, children who are not vaccinated can get special exemptions based on medical grounds, and for what are known as conscientious objections, which are often used by parents who object to vaccinations.

One of the changes being proposed is a tightening of what could be accepted as a conscientious objection, although there are no details of what that could entail.

Jan Robinson, principal of St Luke's Grammar School on Sydney's northern beaches, which caters to students from pre-kindergarten through to Year 12, is sceptical of the proposed two-week ban.

"I think having students out for two weeks, which would be the isolation period, would be quite disruptive I think particularly for older students, and we probably don't see so many of those diseases in the senior school as we do in the junior school," Ms Robinson said.
"I think it would be quite a challenge for the schools to actually be able to manage it."
She said the school already alerted parents to any disease outbreaks, and left it to them to respond appropriately.

"People tend to take it quite seriously and if they have young babies they might take their children out for that time," she said.