Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 1:39 pm on 14 June 2017.
Diolch, Llywydd. I’m sure, Cabinet Secretary, that you’ll have seen the figures from NUT Cymru published this week, showing that, in the four years since 2012, 0.25 million teaching days were lost to stress-related illness in Wales. You’ll also be aware, I’m sure, that college lecturers in Wales are striking tomorrow, with their union warning that a heavy workload is ruining their lives and pushing them to the brink. And, of course, we’ve well trailed in this Chamber the Education Workforce Council’s recent workforce survey, which showed that a third of schoolteachers and a quarter of FE lecturers tell us that they intend to leave their respected professions in the next three years. Now, when you agreed your 10 education priorities with the First Minister on entering Government, shouldn’t you at the very least have included an eleventh, which is the well-being of the workforce, because, without that, you’re not going to achieve any of the 10?