Adam Price: First Minister, as you are aware, the Scottish Government has recently committed to universal free school meals for all primary school children. In 1943, Finland introduced a law clearly requiring free school meals to be served to all children, a policy that is in place still today. And as the Finnish experience has shown—we've modelled much of our education system on them, and actually...
Adam Price: ...for real. The first issue I want to raise with you today relates to a matter very close to my own heart and, indeed, my own life, which is LGBT+ equality. First Minister, do you believe that faith schools should be allowed to operate differently from non-faith schools in the way they approach their teaching about sexual relationships? I raise this because, as ITV Wales has shown, in this...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, Raheem Bailey, an 11-year-old boy who should have felt safe in his own school, had to have his finger amputated following a bullying incident. His mother, Shantal, has explained how Raheem has been subject to racial and physical abuse. Now, while Raheem's case, naturally, has shocked us all in Wales and has led to an outpouring of support for him from across...
Adam Price: In Finland, they have no school inspection, no league tables, no tests or exams up until the age of 16, homework per child is limited to half an hour as a maximum, and they have the most successful education system in the world. That was the model that we were meant to be adopting and yet we start testing at seven and we’ve imported wholesale the overregulated, overworked, overstressed...
Adam Price: When asked what are the challenges when educating pupils about anti-racism in the report, 51 per cent of teachers responded that it was their lack of confidence, and 61 per cent claimed that it was lack of time in the classroom. Educators are under extreme pressure, and workload has been raised as an issue, for example in teacher retention. Anti-racism education is currently being delivered...
Adam Price: ...are associated with economic success? There were some surprising results—or maybe not so surprising—which actually showed that one of the most important variables is the level of expenditure on education. Indeed, as Professor Holtham has said in the last few weeks, rather than actually raiding the education budget, as we’ve done in recent years to actually inflate our conventional...
Adam Price: Thank you for that, First Minister. In the TAC advice that I just referred to, they do say that a period of pre-isolation for families with children, as a result of school closures, could reduce the level of social mixing ahead of the 23 to 28 December period, and therefore have a beneficial effect in terms of saving lives. Are you considering this as an option, First Minister, and if you...
Adam Price: ...year, of course, and a sector where there is a strong Welsh connection and roots stretching back almost as far the Prince's own lifespan. Prince Philip, as is well known, was a pupil at two of the schools of renowned German educator Kurt Hahn, first at the Schloss Salem school in Baden-Württemberg, and then, after the Nazis gained power, in Gordonstoun in Scotland. The core of Hahn's...
Adam Price: ...to embedding anti-racism and the teaching of black and people of colour history, including, as you yourself have referenced, Wales's own role in colonialism and slavery, as core elements within the educational curriculum in every school in Wales?
Adam Price: ...who needs it gets it. In relation to your point about finite resources, we need to be smart, so we need policies that deliver more than one objective. And so you can see, with universal free school meals, if you link it, for example, with the foundational economy—a square meal produced within the square mile, the foundation phase and the foundational economy, ensuring local procurement,...
Adam Price: ...to the leader of the house for that. But, despite the progress, as the leader of the house did recognise, there is work still to be done. I was looking at the figures on LGBT pupils in Welsh schools, and slightly less than 60 per cent of them don’t have any education about issues to do with their sexuality. So, there is work to be done there. Could I ask three questions specifically, in...
Adam Price: ...we have not witnessed since the hungry 1930s. One of the leading organisations that will be at Thursday's summit will be the Bevan Foundation. They and others have championed the role that free school meals can play in combating poverty. Can we look at the ideas that the foundation and others are suggesting, whether it's accelerating the introduction of universal free school meals in...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. The UK Prime Minister has repeatedly scored own goals by only partially and belatedly heeding Marcus Rashford's call to provide free schools meals in England. While the Conservative Government has an ideological objection to helping the most vulnerable in society, in Wales, we have a moral obligation. Providing free school meals is one of the best ways of mitigating the worst...
Adam Price: ...of young people between the ages of three and 15 who speak the language. Now, this demonstrates, doesn't it, that a central element of the Welsh Government's policy, namely developing Welsh-medium education across Wales, is failing. Ten years ago the ambition of a million Welsh speakers was put in place as part of the response to the decline in the census figures at that point. Don't we...
Adam Price: There are a number of things to be welcomed in today's statement, particularly, of course, the agreement that we've come to in terms of the provision of free school meals during school holidays. That will help very many families that are facing hardship at the moment. And, particularly, the warm banks that the First Minister referred to. Although it is regrettable that we do have to refer to...
Adam Price: One of the frustrations is that qualified students from Wales who want to be trained in Wales in our medical schools don’t have the opportunity to undertake that training. When we look at the percentages in England, 80 per cent of the students in medical schools are from England, 50 per cent in Scotland, for example, but only 20 per cent in Wales. Could we guarantee that all Welsh domiciled...
Adam Price: ...innovation body for Wales, similar to what the Scandinavian nations have. I understand that the suggestion being made now is that innovation should be given as a responsibility to the new tertiary education body. The risk with that is that the higher education dimension gets its proper place, but at the expense of the kind of broader economic issues that Lee Waters referred to.
Adam Price: ...good ventilation and air purification are very effective in combating infection. Is there more, First Minister, we could be doing on this front? Belgium has installed carbon dioxide monitors in schools and, indeed, workplaces to see if ventilation needs to be improved. Ireland this week has announced a further €60 million investment in air purification devices in schools, using a mixture...
Adam Price: First Minister, your education Minister said in 2017 that we need to make progress in the next set of PISA results if we're to hit the next target. If the news for Wales on 3 December isn't positive at all, or isn't positive enough, what will the response of the Government be in that situation? Will you accept that the strategy isn't working? We've had a PISA target since 2006 after all. Will...
Adam Price: ...Minister, that you just referred to in the NHS. It could help us relieve some of the pressure on local services on which we have depended so much during the pandemic. It could help us expand free school meals in secondary school. It could help us provide the subsidy to public transport that even the Labour majority on the climate change committee have proposed. It could do these things in...
