The territory recorded 594 new cases on Wednesday while 48 virus patients were in hospital as at 8pm Tuesday. Three people were in intensive care and two required ventilation.

Education Minister Yvette Berry said a survey found 79 per cent of parents and carers were testing their children with the school-distributed rapid tests and 71 per cent wanted the program to continue.

"We've heard very strong feedback from our school communities, from our schools about the impact and the reassurance that this has provided to our school staff, and to parents and children," Ms Berry said.

"What we're seeing is around 34 per cent of all of the cases across the ACT in our school communities, and because of all those COVID safety nets that are in place, we've managed to minimise the spread. And again, the rapid antigen test is just part of providing that additional confidence."

The decision comes after 909 COVID-19 cases were reported in 119 schools in week two. The rapid test program includes government and non-government schools and early childhood educators.

All Canberra schools will continue to receive two tests per student and staff member per week until week eight, which ends on March 25.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said while the vast majority of schools had been exposed to the virus, only a small number of schools had seen a transmission event.

"That's when ACT Health works with education and ... with the school to ensure that those circumstances are addressed," Ms Stephen-Smith said.

An Education Directorate spokesman said the directorate did not keep data on schools that had experienced likely COVID-19 transmission on site.

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The ACT Council of Parents and Citizens Associations president Alison Elliot said parents would welcome the "generous" four-week extension.

"For many parents and carers rapid antigen tests have been an important tool supporting decisions to send students to school each day," Ms Elliott said.

"Families have been using them in a variety of ways - for reassurance to check kids are negative before heading off to school, but also before mingling with other parts of the community. So the tests are being used to protect their school community, but also older relatives, the soccer team or dance class."

Australian Education Union ACT branch president Angela Burroughs said the decision to extend the program was a sensible and common-sense approach.

"I understand that it has given staff and members of the community that level of confidence and that's been a contributor to why we've been able to open our schools at the beginning of the school year and more importantly, to be able to keep them open," Ms Burroughs said.

She said the union had worked with the Education Directorate on a reopening plan based on health advice that there could be a massive spike in cases once school resumed, but the worst-case scenarios hadn't eventuated yet.

"We have seen a spike in the last week or so but pleasingly because of the plans that have been put in place and the great work of our school leaders and our members we've been able to open our schools and keep them open."

Ms Burroughs said the distribution of the tests did create extra challenges for staff and school leaders but they were willing to address the logistical problems for the safety of staff and students.

"There's definitely workload implications. But our education workforce is incredibly generous and it wants to be able to engage in what they do best, which is to support the learning of our students."

Ms Stephen-Smith said people who returned a negative rapid antigen test but have been exposed to the virus and had symptoms should also get a PCR test.

"We know that rapid antigen tests are not as accurate as PCR. But by and large, they are still pretty accurate so we're seeing a pretty strong reporting of results from rapid antigen tests."

She did not have a breakdown of the number of school-based COVID cases that had been detected through rapid antigen tests.

The uncertainty around supplies of rapid antigen tests threw plans for the beginning of the school year into doubt.

However, enough supplies were sourced to send to all schools by the end of week one. In recent days supplies have begun to flow into pharmacies around the territory.

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