Schools would be forced to publish their vaccination rates online under a Coalition proposal aimed at stamping out outbreaks.
In an election pledge pitched at families, Liberal leader Matthew Guy announced on Monday that if the Coalition formed government in 2018 it would publish the immunisation rates of every year level at every school.
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A guide to measles in Australia
Health experts continue to warn people to check they have been immunised against measles. For further information visit: https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/
It follows recent research which found that a measles outbreak that tore through Essendon North Primary could have been contained faster if schools were forced to keep detailed vaccination records.
"Parents want to know, they have a right to know," Mr Guy said.
"This information should be made public, school by school, so that parents can make that choice themselves, and parents can make a decision as to what school best suits their point of view, particularly around childhood immunisation."
He said publishing the data would provide schools with an "incentive" to improve their vaccination rates.
But it is unclear how schools might do this. Under Victorian law, no child can be barred from school because they are not vaccinated.
The opposition's education spokesman Nick Wakeling said the changes would empower parents.
"We believe that parents fundamentally want to make sure that their children are being educated within a safe environment when it comes to their children's health," he said.
Victorian Association of State Secondary Principals president Judy Crowe said the proposal was "unfair" on schools because they had no control over vaccination rates.
"It is using schools to achieve an end that is not related to a school's educational purpose," she said.
"There should be another way to achieve this."
She said it would be difficult for school's with transient populations to make sure their information was up to date.
Education Minister James Merlino said parents already had to provide a proof of immunisation certificate when they enrolled their children in primary school. This enabled schools to take "swift action" if there was an outbreak, he said.
"Our focus is on increasing vaccination rates in the community and helping schools manage their immunisation records – not thought bubbles from an opposition whose only action on vaccinations was to cut the free whooping cough for new and expectant parents when they were last in government."
Last year, Fairfax Media tried to obtain the immunisation rates of every school through freedom-of-information laws but was told that the Education Department did not collect immunisation rates.
Primary schools collect immunisation certificates from students regardless of whether they have been fully vaccinated. They only interpret the data if there is an outbreak and non-immunised students need to be isolated.
"Therefore the department can only report on the rate of immunisation status certification presentations, not the actual rate of immunised and non-immunised students," an FOI manager wrote at the time.
Students are not required to produce an immunisation certificate when they enrol in high school.
A report published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health which examined a measles outbreak at Essendon North Primary found that poor immunisation records and delays in medical diagnosis made it difficult to identify vulnerable students.
Five of the school's six unvaccinated children were infected.
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