<p>The Welsh Baccalaureate</p>

Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 1:33 pm on 10 May 2017.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 1:33, 10 May 2017

I’m pleased to hear, Cabinet Secretary, that it’s not an obligation on the student to adhere to the Welsh baccalaureate. I understand that it should be an obligation of the education provider to give opportunities to students, and I think that the community volunteering aspect and the emotional resilience aspect are really important parts of anybody’s education.

But I have had correspondence from people expressing concern that, by being forced to do the Welsh baccalaureate, they are having to limit their options of what they would choose to study. And I think it’s a particular concern at key stage 5, where students are perhaps competing to get in to some of the most competitive universities. It is A-levels that are going to be the determining factor, and three A-levels are demanded by places like Cambridge and Warwick, and the Welsh baccalaureate doesn’t come into it. So, I think it’s quite important that we’re not obliging students, at key stage 5 in particular, when they’re no longer in compulsory education, to do it, and that there should be room within the system, in key stage 4, to enable students who would prefer to follow another option to opt out. And I wondered if you’d be able to give guidance as to whether that is really possible.