Alun Davies: Llywydd, I agree with the point that the Member has made, and the Government has historically been quite shy about these issues. I’m less shy. I have seen the advantages of Welsh-medium education in my own family and I see the advantages of having Welsh-medium education for children across the country, which allows them to be part of the wealth of cultural inheritance that we have. I think...
Alun Davies: ...Chamber is that they don’t want to hear it again. I wouldn’t seek to inflict that on anyone. I understand the points that have been made about increasing and stimulating demand for Welsh-medium education. I think all of us who have children who’ve been in or through the system recognise the benefits of that, and recognise the benefits of acquiring a language at an early age....
Alun Davies: ...of the country and start collaborating with parents and communities to ensure that we move in the same direction to ensure that there is more Welsh and more opportunities to receive Welsh-medium education and Welsh education—to have that through agreement. So, the ambition that I have is that we can move forward through agreement to expand Welsh-medium provision in all parts of the...
Alun Davies: ...for primary legislation. What I want to be able to do is to look at the interplay between primary and secondary legislation. Some of these areas are the responsibility of the Cabinet Secretary for Education and we will need to take a considered view on how we approach having a holistic and comprehensive statutory framework that enables us to take these decisions, but also which enables us...
Alun Davies: Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Welsh in education strategic plans have established a sound basis for planning Welsh-medium education, but so much has changed since the Schools Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013 came into statutory force. We now have to adapt and modernise the way in which we plan Welsh education to reflect the ambition set in ‘Cymraeg 2050’,...
Alun Davies: ...and challenge these plans. We are expecting to receive the revised WESPs during the coming weeks. Aled’s report also offers recommendations for developing the future planning of Welsh-medium education. These include reviewing the timetable of the WESPs to coincide with the Welsh Government’s capital schemes, specifically the twenty-first century schools programme, and capital...
Alun Davies: ...communities across the country, and I will lead a new consensus in order to change the structures that we currently have. Everything must change. At the heart of all of this is the crucial role of education, and many people—I think everyone who’s contributed this afternoon—have mentioned the role that our education system will play. Members will be very much aware that the Cabinet...
Alun Davies: ...programme of work, which was published simultaneously, you will see that there are criteria included there that show that we’re planning for an increase in the number of children receiving their education through the medium of Welsh, and how many teachers will be required to attain those targets. So, the targets are already there for the end of this Assembly term and the ensuing years....
Alun Davies: I hope that that is happening. I had a meeting last week with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol to discuss how we can expand and continue to implement the work that was recommended by Delyth Evans in her task and finish group, which the Cabinet Secretary published in the summer. I would expect and anticipate that all those different elements need to be in...
Alun Davies: Presiding Officer, Members will be aware, from yesterday’s business statement, that I’ll be making an oral statement on Welsh language education plans next Tuesday. Members will also be aware that I commissioned Aled Roberts to look at all the strategic plans for education published by local authorities, in the spring, and he published that report in the summer. In terms of the example...
Alun Davies: Education is one of the key areas that underpins our ambition to achieve 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. Ensuring the increase in the number of children and young people educated through the medium of Welsh or bilingually will be a priority for us all.
Alun Davies: ...judicious remarks about cost. And the cost, of course, of failure will be borne not by Members here but by the people we fail out there, and the children and young people who fail to fulfil their educational potential because we, here, don’t deliver the system that will enable them to succeed. I accept the points that have been made by Llyr, but I would say to Llyr that the strength of...
Alun Davies: ...For those Members on the committee, they will see that many of the amendments we’ll be discussing tomorrow derive from the scrutiny of this Bill in Stage 1 by both the Children, Young People and Education Committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, as well as the Finance Committee. And I’m grateful for the comprehensive scrutiny of the policy and the legal and...
Alun Davies: ...piece of reform with the potential to support tens of thousands of children and young people with additional learning needs to fully realise their potential. Last week, the Cabinet Secretary for Education launched ‘Education in Wales: Our national mission’, the Government’s plans for continuing to raise standards, reducing the attainment gap and delivering an education system that is...
Alun Davies: ..., the south Wales metro will be a means of ensuring that we are able to enable people to move to find work where necessary, to have different opportunities for work and skills, and to receive education and services. But also, we need to ensure that we have those jobs available to them where they live as well. One of the great opportunities that I see with the development of the A465...
Alun Davies: ...lives, the same opportunity to attend Welsh-medium ‘cylchoedd’ and bilingual ‘cylchoedd’ nationwide, so that they have the opportunity to start learning Welsh as early as possible in their education. When it comes to the Valleys taskforce, I want to ensure that the Welsh language is part of the daily life of the Valleys once again. It was excellent for me personally to visit a...
Alun Davies: Can I say how much I absolutely agree with the points that have been made by Lee Waters? As a Minister, you tend to visit a number of different schools and institutions. I visited a school in your constituency about six months ago. I visited my old infants school with the education Secretary. It’s always a curious experience to go back to your own school. When I started in Glanhowy infants,...
Alun Davies: ...the language through the generations, the parent who decides to send their child through the Welsh-medium system, the parent who helps their children doing their Welsh homework in an English-medium school, the people who change the language that they use when they’re in a rugby club, a pub or whatever it happens to be, or the people who actually make an effort to use the language on a...
Alun Davies: .... I’m sure that that policy will include the west and the north of Wales in their entirety, of course, and you will see that happening over the coming months and coming years. When it comes to education, are the targets sufficient? I do think that the targets are ambitious and sufficient for now. This is a journey. It’s not a four-year strategy. We’ve published a work programme for...
Alun Davies: ...commissioned work by Delyth Evans, and the report of that taskforce will be published over the next few weeks. And that report will start to put together that picture of how we can develop further education through the medium of Welsh by ensuring that we have post-16 courses through the medium of Welsh for those people who want to work with the Mudiad Meithrin, for example, but also to...
