3. Will the Minister provide an update on citizenship and political education in schools? OAQ(5)0055(EDU)

Thank you, Hannah. Citizenship and political education are important parts of the curriculum and will be central to the new curriculum. One of the four curriculum purposes is that all pupils become ethical and informed citizens. In the current curriculum, learners study citizenship and politics through personal and social education, as well as the Welsh baccalaureate.

Thank you. I welcome the opportunities that the Welsh baccalaureate and the wholesale review of the curriculum gives to embed action and programmes that enable and empower our young people to become active citizens and, ultimately, hold people like us to account. There’s so many good examples out there. In my own constituency alone, there is the eco committee at Ysgol Croes Atti in Flint, which raises awareness of environmental issues locally and encourages learners to promote a healthier and greener future. And, of course, the Ysgol Merllyn school parliament that I was pleased to welcome here a couple of weeks ago, and I know that you actually met them. They actually have a proper election campaign and an election day, and the eligibility to vote is that you have to be for, and in, full-time education. And what that does is that it embeds with those children the importance of voting at a very young age, and being an active citizen. Will you, Cabinet Secretary, commit to visiting some of these examples, not just in my constituency, but across Wales, to help inform the provision of citizenship and political education in the future?

Thank you, Hannah. I did, indeed, have the opportunity to meet with some of the children from the school council. Indeed, I met my counterpart, the minister for education on the school council, and she had plenty of good ideas about how we can improve education not only in that school, but across Wales. As you say, currently, these issues are predominantly dealt with in the active citizenship theme in the existing personal and social education framework, as well as through the Welsh baccalaureate. At both key stage 4 and post 16, learners have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of society and the community in which they live, and an awareness of global issues through events and perspectives. The education service works very hard here at the National Assembly to provide opportunities under the Welsh baccalaureate for young people to come and use our facilities and to debate, and we will continue to look at examples of good practice as we develop this area of learning and experience for our new curriculum.

Cabinet Secretary, I was last week refused permission as an Assembly Member to hold a public meeting in the new Ysgol Bae Baglan in Port Talbot by the headteacher at the last moment, trying to discuss local parking issues and access to community facilities at the school. The reason given was that it was a political meeting, but it was not a political meeting because we had representatives from other parties and other AMs from other parties there at the meeting. I don’t expect you to comment on this particular example, but how can we expect pupils and students to engage in the political process if headteachers, locally, do not know what processes are and what is deemed political and what our role is as Assembly Members? What training will you therefore carry out for headteachers who may not know what those rules are?

The availability of school facilities for meetings of that nature are a matter for the individual headteacher and the governing body, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment.

I think the issue of political education in schools may be quite pertinent now that we have the local government Minister’s proposals for extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds possibly at some future date. So, I wondered how we ensure that political education is taught in a balanced way to represent different political viewpoints.

I am delighted that the Cabinet Secretary has signalled his early commitment to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. Many of those 16 and 17-year-olds who I meet on my visits to schools and colleges are very anxious to be able to have a formal say in the political process. As I outlined in my answer to Hannah Blythyn, we have an extensive range of opportunities for children to learn about politics and the communities that they live in, and I believe in the professionalism of our teaching staff who deliver our curriculum to do that in a balanced and objective fashion.