Andrew RT Davies: Well, obviously, you must’ve been living in a different universe, because we had no proposals for cuts in education at the last Assembly elections. Rather bizarrely, you must’ve been living in a different universe. What we’ve had since Christmas are the programme for international student assessment results; we’ve had the Estyn report that has clearly shown that, on your watch,...
Andrew RT Davies: It’s always someone else’s fault, First Minister, with you, isn’t it? In fairness, the pupil numbers in our schools have remained relatively static, yet we’ve seen in excess of 1,000 teachers disappear out of the classrooms, both in primary and secondary schools across Wales on your watch. What also came to light in the committee last week was that the funding gap between what is...
Andrew RT Davies: Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, as I’ve said to you many times in this Chamber, you quite rightly identified education as a priority for your stewardship as First Minister here in the National Assembly for Wales. Last week, in the education committee, evidence was given that showed that the number of teachers in our schools has declined by over 1,000 since 2010. If education...
Andrew RT Davies: ...very good example of pioneering science and technology. Your Government has targets for having a million Welsh speakers by 2050. There’s a statement this afternoon, ‘Towards 2030’, from the education Secretary. There is a goal that the UK Lung Cancer Coalition has, which is to increase the survival rates from lung cancer. Irrespective of where you live across the United Kingdom, the...
Andrew RT Davies: ...when deciding if this option actually stacks up or not. Then, it goes without saying that we will all fight within this Chamber to secure Wales’s share of resources, to make sure that our higher education sector, our rural economy and, indeed, structural funding can benefit from that money coming into Wales. There is no argument there, and we will work tirelessly with anyone in this...
Andrew RT Davies: ...to any scrutiny at all. We’re talking about the here and now and the Estyn report that was delivered today, which is a damning indictment of your stewardship here in Wales. If you take one local education authority—Cardiff—nearly 50 per cent of headteachers have left their posts in the last three years—50 per cent. Nearly 50 per cent have left. Initiative after initiative have I...
Andrew RT Davies: ..., and that is no example to follow, I’d suggest to you, First Minister. You’ve had initiative after initiative since your tenure as First Minister, and, indeed, since Labour have been running education, since 1999. We’ve had teacher workload initiatives; we’ve had the regional consortia that have come in for special criticism today from Estyn, showing that there’s poor...
Andrew RT Davies: ...Minister, specifically about the Estyn inspection report that has been brought forward today. You not unreasonably said when you first became First Minister in 2009 that you were going to make education your priority. Just before Christmas, we had the Programme for International Student Assessment results that showed no progress at all in Wales’s rankings when it comes to international...
Andrew RT Davies: ...[Laughter.] This initiative that the Government has brought forward, will it be part of the childcare offer that is being made available, because it has been alluded to at committee stage that schools obviously might form part of the facility through the school holidays? I appreciate this initiative is only funded for one year, but will it be looked upon as part of the offer that the...
Andrew RT Davies: Since devolution, it has been the Labour Party, with your party and the Liberals, who’ve run education here in Wales, and have a responsibility for these results. I’m not quite sure where you get the Conservatives from.
Andrew RT Davies: I do regret you using the word ‘disrepute’. This morning, I travelled to three schools across my region to celebrate Christmas with the kids there and the teachers and the excellence that’s going on in those schools, but you cannot—. [Interruption.] What are you saying about time? You cannot deny the lamentable record of Welsh education when it is benchmarked between 72 countries...
Andrew RT Davies: ...listening, but literally 10 seconds ago I made that very point, I did, and really it couldn’t have gone much lower, so if that’s what the Labour Party are celebrating about their strategy for education then poor you, because, as I did say in my remarks, we are still behind in maths where we were in 2006. So, I go back to the gambit that I put down in my opening remarks: this Government...
Andrew RT Davies: ...results are taken in 2018. That is what our job as the opposition is now—to try and understand exactly where the Government are going, in light of the results that we had last week, with their education policy. We’ve seen Schools Challenge Cymru put to one side, which was a cornerstone of the previous Cabinet Secretary/Minister’s education challenge, shall we say, to schools, and yet...
Andrew RT Davies: Surely the most devastating critique of Welsh Government’s action to date on public services is the critique that came forward yesterday on education, which shows that a policy area where Welsh Labour have been in control for 17 years has delivered abject failure when benchmarked internationally against the best in the world? That, surely, is the fundamental critique of where Welsh Labour...
Andrew RT Davies: ...today when you’re looking at some of the changes that have gone on in other parts of the United Kingdom. But I’m holding you to account about the vision that you obviously do not have for education in the future. I’ve quoted Huw Lewis, who was the previous Cabinet Secretary. Someone we do miss from this Chamber is dear old Leighton Andrews from the Rhondda—and I congratulate the...
Andrew RT Davies: ...in Government. You’re the First Minister. The Labour Party have been in Government since 1999. You’ve written off a generation. Are you prepared to write off another generation? It’s your own education Secretaries who have come to this Chamber time and time again—. Huw Lewis, back in 2013, said, ‘I expect to see the impact of our reforms reflected in the next set of results’....
Andrew RT Davies: ...behind you had the wit to listen to you. All of them were looking at their computers, and rightly so. The Labour Party needs to be embarrassed by today’s results, after 17 years of leading education here in Wales. That is a damning indictment—a damning indictment—of your failures, First Minister, and the Labour Party’s ability to lead education here in Wales. When you took office...
Andrew RT Davies: ...between 300,000 and 500,000 people, right the way through their lives, have issues with dyslexia on a different and sliding scale—and the help that can be put in place, at the start of the education system, can be put there if the will is there at a local authority level, and, indeed, by direction of Government. I would implore the Government to take a grip of this situation, because, as...
Andrew RT Davies: ...to pasture, so much so that our latest bit of big data kit, called the Scorpion, they keep me well away from for the damage I might cause with that. But it’s an important point that we need to be educating and allowing people to develop through the industry so they can make use of these data, because there’s no point in having them if you can’t use them.
Andrew RT Davies: ...a viable food production base for the ever-growing population of the world. The motion before us today does put the gauntlet down, in a friendly way, to the Welsh Government, and to our higher education and further education institutions, and the industry itself, to rise to the challenge and the opportunity that actually is there to develop these new growth areas. It’s not just in the...
