Darren Millar: ...work that has been done in many different ways across social media, the printed media and other media at large. Why are we not seeing a similar effort to recruit the teachers that the Welsh schooling system needs, so that we’ve got sufficient Welsh-medium teachers and sufficient STEM subject teachers for the future? Because, otherwise, we’re going to continue to slip down the OECD’s...
Darren Millar: ..., Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, attention has already been drawn to the fact that we’re heading towards a recruitment crisis in our teaching profession and, of course, this was highlighted by the Education Workforce Council’s survey, which found that more than one in three teachers intends to leave the profession within the next three years. What specifically are you doing to plug the...
Darren Millar: ...you agree with me, First Minister, that we need to get the balance right here in respect of any changes that might need to be made, going forward, to improve the risk-assessment processes regarding school trips? Because we do want people to be able to access an enriched educational experience by taking part in trips, so it’s important that any change to Welsh Government guidance, any...
Darren Millar: ...in order to direct and deliver on their policy objectives. So, I can completely understand why the Government sought to amalgamate these grants in order to reduce the administrative burden on local education authorities and, indeed, on the Welsh Government in terms of taking things forward. But I am concerned that there’s been a lack of follow-up in terms of the Welsh Government trying...
Darren Millar: ...to meet these challenges because of the unfair local government funding formula that we have here in Wales. I think it should come as no surprise to us, therefore, that in terms of things like school closures, we’ve seen more closures in rural local authorities than in other parts of Wales. In fact, since 2006, there have 157 primary school closures in Wales, and 95 of those—60 per...
Darren Millar: ...tell us just how many members you envisage the board actually having when it’s got a full complement of members so that it can take its work forward. Just on quality, Minister, obviously the Education Workforce Council now is responsible for registering youth workers across Wales. We are yet to see the development of any professional standards for youth workers in the country. That is...
Darren Millar: First Minister, will you agree with me that one of the ways to improve child health is to ensure proper access to school nurses across Wales? Will he congratulate the school nursing workforce that we have here in Wales that do an excellent job in terms of immunisation and public health messages in our schools, and, in particular, the unique Judith Jerwood in your own constituency, who serves...
Darren Millar: I fully concur with those views. We’ve got to promote and we’ve got to persuade because there are some people who need more persuading than we’ve done to date. It’s not just in our schools; it’s our pre-school system as well here in Wales that needs to have the opportunity to grow the number of places and its capacity. It’s our further education sector in particular that isn’t...
Darren Millar: ...as a National Assembly that has supported the Welsh language on a cross-party basis over the duration of many different administrations, stick together in order to advance the cause of Welsh-medium education. We, for our party’s sake, will be supporting that tremendous ambition that has been set out by the Welsh Government to create 1 million Welsh language speakers by 2050. That’s an...
Darren Millar: First Minister, one thing that can be done is to develop more mindfulness practice in schools. The Cabinet Secretary for Education visited Ysgol Pen-y-Bryn in Colwyn Bay in my own constituency late last year, where she met some of the children and staff in the school that had been practising mindfulness, and they spoke passionately about the impact of mindfulness in their lives in helping...
Darren Millar: ...of public finances is one that our country is still trying to get to grips with. And notwithstanding the pressures on public finances, the reality is that the cuts that you have made in the further education sector in Wales are larger than the cuts that have been imposed on the Welsh block grant. So, it’s choices in Wales that your Government has made that have led to the financial blows...
Darren Millar: Diolch, Lywydd. Is the Minister concerned that almost half of Welsh further education colleges are in significant financial deficit?
Darren Millar: ...from colleges here in Wales. We’ve seen huge cuts in terms of funding for part-time courses in particular—71 per cent in recent years, and a reduction of 13 per cent in real terms to further education colleges. Those are cuts that are now biting hard in those colleges. Some are withdrawing access to certain courses. I appreciate that you want to focus across the border in England, but...
Darren Millar: ...of these funds and to find out whether they might be able to draw any down? Can you also tell me—? I know that our universities are obviously centres of excellence for research, but our further education colleges are getting more and more involved in this particular sphere. You mentioned some of the construction related issues, for example, with Cardiff council, and I wonder what level...
Darren Millar: ...are on a four-weekly general refuse collection scheme. There has been an increase in fly-tipping reports. There has been an increase in rodent sightings. There are not just the issues of helping to educate people about how to dispose of waste more sensibly, but there are public health risks as well related to this. It cannot be right that pet waste sits in people’s bins for four weeks at...
Darren Millar: Thank you for that answer, leader of the house. There’s been a lot of talk about the need for parity of esteem between higher and further education in this Chamber over the past 10 years, but successive Welsh Labour Governments have failed to deliver on that talk and that ambition. The Wales Audit Office, in fact, has confirmed in a recent report on the oversight of further education...
Darren Millar: 6. Will the First Minister make a statement on post-16 education in Wales? OAQ(5)0503(FM)
Darren Millar: ...health, and I just want to take a few moments, if I can, just to highlight how important it is to get health messages home to children and to parents, and indeed to teaching professionals in our schools. One of the tools that, traditionally, has been used to deliver those important messages has been our school nursing workforce, and I had the pleasure of visiting an excellent school...
Darren Millar: ...want to put on record my thanks to Estyn, as well, for the work that they do across Wales. Their inspections, of course, do provide us with a very valuable snapshot of what’s taking place in our schools across the country, and, indeed, in further education and early years settings. That report that they publish on an annual basis gives us the opportunity to take a look—zoom out, if you...
Darren Millar: .... In terms of the smoke-free requirements, I welcome some of the extensions that have been brought forward by the Government, but the Minister will know that I have raised with her a proposal from schoolchildren in my own constituency in Ysgol Pen y Bryn in Colwyn Bay, who’ve actually said that one of the things that they really detest is hanging around at bus stops when people are...
