Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Mark. Welsh Government provides funding to local authorities, Careers Wales, and further education institutions to deliver services that support pupils with additional learning needs entering into post-16 education. Furthermore, our ambitious ALN reforms will deliver improved collaborative assessment, planning and monitoring of support provided to all learners with an ALN.
Kirsty Williams: If I can give the Member a concrete example of how we're doing just that, and that is our degree apprenticeship programme. That degree apprenticeship programme sees individuals based in the company for the vast majority of their time but undertaking some part-time study. That's not the same as thinking that those students just do a normal degree on a part-time basis; the programme that has...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Joyce. I spoke to the vice-chancellor of that institution last week and received a categorical assurance on the future of educational provision at the Lampeter campus from him.
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Joyce. We continue to provide financial and regulatory support to the sector through HEFCW, which, together with our student support reforms, will create a stronger, more sustainable HE sector across the nation.
Kirsty Williams: Well, Angela, you're right; the MIM—the mutual investment model—does give us the opportunity as a Government, working alongside partners, to be able to lever in an additional £500 million-worth of resource into the programme, which allows us to complete even more refurbishment and new-build projects. That needs to be managed very carefully, and local authorities and FE colleges that are...
Kirsty Williams: Well, can I thank the Member for bringing to the attention of the whole Assembly the official opening of Ysgol Ponyberem next week? I'm very disappointed that I'm not able to attend. One of the most wonderful aspects of being the Minister for Education is to be able to travel the length and breadth of the nation opening new buildings, whether that be a complete new build or very, very...
Kirsty Williams: The first five-year phase of the twenty-first century schools and education programme will see £87 million invested in the rebuild and refurbishment of schools in Carmarthenshire. A further £129.5 million has been earmarked for the second phase of the programme from April 2019, subject, of course, to the usual process of business cases being dealt with.
Kirsty Williams: Well, Presiding Officer, I should declare an interest. My own family had to appeal a transport decision for my own children's ability to access their Welsh-medium education, along with another group of Powys parents. So, I am very familiar with some of the issues that parents find when trying to make that very positive choice. And I think it's particularly important that we address these...
Kirsty Williams: Well, Alun, yes indeed. All children in Wales have that right to receive their education through the medium of Welsh, if that's what they and their parents choose. Certainly, sometimes, parents and children face significant logistical disadvantage in accessing that right, often travelling significant distances to be able to enact that right. I am acutely aware of some of the changes with...
Kirsty Williams: Diolch yn fawr, Alun. Welsh-medium education is currently offered in all local authorities across Wales. The Welsh in education strategic plans are a mechanism for planning and expanding Welsh-medium education, and we are currently consulting on a new approach to planning Welsh-medium education by introducing 10-year plans and ambitious measurable targets.
Kirsty Williams: Well, Presiding Officer, I can assure the Member that projects benefiting from Welsh Government investment under the twenty-first century schools and colleges building programme need to demonstrate very clearly that they have included provision for safe and convenient walking and cycling access to those places of learning.
Kirsty Williams: Vikki, the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 itself requires local authorities to prepare their plans for integrated walking and cycling networks, in consultation with communities. And the walk to school toolkit, which was developed by Living Streets and which Welsh Government actually funded, offers an easy and systematic way to involve schoolchildren and local communities in assessing the...
Kirsty Williams: Well, David, I can do more than just commend Ysgol Hamadryad for the approach that they have taken, because I myself joined the walking bus to Ysgol Hamadryad just last week. It just demonstrates, with a change of mindset, actually how achievable this can be. It's been affected by a number of issues. Obviously, it's a new school and therefore new habits are perhaps more easily instilled in...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, David. The new curriculum supports active travel. One of the four purposes integral to that new curriculum is that learners develop as healthy, confident individuals, able to apply knowledge about the impact of exercise on their physical and their mental health in their daily lives, and become individuals that take part in physical activity on a regular basis.
Kirsty Williams: My remit letter of 2019-20 to HEFCW sets out my expectation that I will receive confirmation this year that all Welsh universities will have received formally their accreditation. And I have looked, wherever I can within my department, to make progress in this regard. So, for instance, the staff of the Student Loans Company that operate the student loan system on behalf of Welsh Government...
Kirsty Williams: Well, you're absolutely right, Mick. In order to get an accreditation of the kind that the University of South Wales has recently been awarded, the living wage must be implemented both for directly employed staff and outsourced activity. Without that, accreditation cannot be won. Universities Wales members have committed to paying the Living Wage Foundation's living wage to all directly...
Kirsty Williams: Thank you, Mick. I am committed to the public sector in Wales being living-wage employers, including the education sector. I'm delighted that, in addition to local authorities, all FE and higher education institutions in Wales are now living-wage employers and are working towards formal accreditation of that status.
Kirsty Williams: Andrew, you're absolutely right: we will need to ensure that our education providers at a variety of levels will be able to upskill our workforce. Many of those currently in work will be seeking opportunities to retrain or to gain for the first time skills that they will need to keep pace with the local economy. I'm sure that you will have seen the recently published 'Digital 2030' report....
Kirsty Williams: Our national mission provides all learners with high-level digital skills to ensure that young people are digitally competent and evolve into enterprising, creative and critical thinkers. The digital competence framework, which is the first part of our new curriculum reform, offers learners a set of skills to enable the confident, creative and critical use both of technologies and of systems...
Kirsty Williams: If I could give the Member just one very concrete example, she will be aware, in the consultation on the curriculum White Paper, that it is my intention, in the new curriculum, to have three statutory cross-cutting responsibilities, building on the two we already have. At the moment, we expect all lessons to contribute to literacy and to numeracy, and, in the future, digital competence will...
