5. 5. Statement: Successful Futures: An Update on Digital

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:50 pm on 13 June 2017.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 4:50, 13 June 2017

Thank you very much, Michelle, for the comments and the questions. I think what is absolutely crucial is that we enable our children to have the knowledge of how they can stay safe online, how they can use technology in everyday life, but also, crucially, as you said at the end, that their knowledge goes beyond that and they actually understand the workings of how that technology is being put together and take advantage of the significant employment opportunities that will exist in having coding skills.

I don’t want to prejudge what I will say next week about the Government’s strategy on coding, but to be clear, it’s my ambition that more children should have access to those skills and to those opportunities, and that goes beyond children. I’m working very closely with my Cabinet colleague for skills to see how those skills can be rolled out to adult learners, and how people, perhaps who are not currently in the workplace, can acquire those skills. They are skills that mean that logistical disadvantage, i.e. you’re stuck in a community with low transport links to be able to get to a big city, if the superfast broadband infrastructure is good enough, you can do that from your home. If you have caring responsibilities and you can’t work away from home, you can code and work for a company successfully in your own home. So, actually, this goes beyond coding simply for younger people, it is about using these skills to be able to empower the Welsh workforce as a whole.

With regard to criteria, for the 341 schools that have been supported by this £5 million, those conversations have been had with individual local authorities that have identified schools that have significant problems in increasing their broadband speeds, whose rolls, perhaps, are increasing because of the merger of schools or the closure of schools, and a re-establishment of a different pattern within the school means it might struggle, as well as identifying resources for our special schools, which, as I outlined, originally had lower speeds set for them and we wanted to address that because of the individual specific needs that special schools have regarding this type of technology. We will constantly keep under review the adequacy of the infrastructure that is available.

With regard to coding, as I said, that’s really important and parents are an important part of this whole discussion; this isn’t about excluding parents from this discussion. Many schools, I know, work very closely with their parental communities to share good practice, to share, for instance, internet safety advice, to be able to give after-school opportunities for parents to come in and understand what they can do simply at home with filters, et cetera, to keep their children safe online. So, this is not about excluding parents from this; actually, we want to increase parental engagement and understanding of how these resources can greatly aid their children’s academic and educational attainment.