Thank you, Presiding Officer. If I may take just a brief opportunity to outline that the Order sets out the functions that the Education Workforce Council will undertake in relation to the accreditation of initial teacher education programmes in Wales through the accreditation of the initial schoolteacher training committee, the remit for which will be set out in regulations that will be laid before the National Assembly subject to the approval of this Order today.

The timing of this transfer of functions to the council will be aligned to the implementation plans for the new curriculum over the next three to five years. The arrangements for accrediting initial teacher training provision, however, will need to be in place by no later than the autumn of 2017 to ensure that all new courses of ITT delivered from September 2019 are accredited against reconceptualised accreditation criteria.

In 2015, the teacher education accreditation group, chaired by Professor Furlong, was tasked with developing the reconceptualised criteria for accrediting ITT programmes in Wales. The aim of the new criteria is to improve the quality and consistency of provision and introduce a new approach to ITT in our nation.

Central to the vision underpinning the new criteria for initial teacher training is the recognition that high-quality professional training and education necessarily involves a number of different modes of learning. Some dimensions of teaching can only be learned experientially while other forms of learning are intellectually based. However, the largest part of all teacher training and education should be based on learning that is both rigorously practical and intellectually challenging.

I want to encourage a partnership approach in the design of future ITT programmes, with higher education institutions working in close collaboration with a number of lead partnership schools. If truly collaborative teacher training and education is to be achieved, then HEIs working with partner schools must take joint responsibility for the contribution to the programme.

Also, Presiding Officer, I am pleased to announce a rare opportunity by which the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—the OECD—has offered their services as renowned leaders in education to work with our ITT partners through the development of a theory-based approach to ITT in Wales. This will be achieved via an international workshop to be held in the spring, during which an ITT framework will be designed, aimed at building capacity and a truly unique set of Welsh initial teacher education programmes.

Finally, Members will note that the council will be able to charge a fee in connection with providing the accreditation service, which will be subject to a separate consultation undertaken by them. I would expect a fee structure to be in place by 1 September 2018.