4. What plans does the Welsh Government have to reduce the pressure on teachers’ workloads in Wales? OAQ(5)0134(EDU)

Thank you, Oscar. Our aim is to build capacity and reduce excessive workload, leading to improved standards through reducing bureaucracy, improved policy delivery and better ways of working. There is no single solution to this complex issue, and it requires a multiple-stream approach, incorporating a number of separate work streams, which Welsh Government is currently undertaking.

Thank you for the reply, Minister, but the facts are that official figures reveal that there were 275 fewer teachers employed in Wales in 2016, compared to the previous year. Also, there were 446 fewer teaching assistants. A survey by the Education Workforce Council found that more than 88 per cent of teachers said they did not think that they could handle the workload in agreed hours, and that more than a third planned to quit the profession within the next three years, and I think that’s a striking figure, Cabinet Secretary. Is it not the case that the policies you are pursuing have created a teaching profession that is overworked and disillusioned in Wales?

As I said earlier in questions to Llyr, workload is a real issue for the teaching profession and is a real concern to me. We are using the data, as I said, from the workforce survey to try and refine our approaches in this area. We’re also, as I said earlier, having detailed discussions with the education workforce unions. Let me be clear on some of the things that I have done. We have established a headteachers’ advisory panel, comprising of 26 of the most highly performing heads in Wales, whom I and my officials consult on the development of new policies and implementation issues that may arise. We have established and commissioned work on specific issues, including looking at marking and assessment, which are often cited as areas that increase workload for teachers. We have commissioned specific research, such as a project being undertaken by Trinity Saint David university, which is observing and analysing school leaders’ time management, to look to see what school leaders are actually spending their time doing. Work with the consortia, local authorities and other stakeholders has been undertaken to identify and publicise best practice, for example Estyn’s myth-busting campaign. As I said, there is no single answer to this complex issue, but we are working across a number of work streams to address workload where we can.

In Finland, they have no school inspection, no league tables, no tests or exams up until the age of 16, homework per child is limited to half an hour as a maximum, and they have the most successful education system in the world. That was the model that we were meant to be adopting and yet we start testing at seven and we’ve imported wholesale the overregulated, overworked, overstressed system from the failing education system next door in England. Why?

What needs to be absolutely clear—and I took the opportunity to visit Finland in January, myself, to look at education policy and practice in their schools—is that the Finnish Government are very concerned about Finland. Relative to them—it would be great if we had performance that way—but relative to them, the Finnish system is dropping down the PISA league table. It is not improving. It is not holding its own. Their performance is diminishing. Compared to ours, we would want to have those scores, but that is the reality of the Finnish system. We are looking to learn from international examples, whether that be Finland—. Officials were last week in Ontario in Canada, looking at their very successful model, and we will continue to look at best practice internationally to inform our education reforms. But let me be absolutely clear: removing all forms of accountability has landed us in the position of where we find ourselves in, and nobody—nobody—thinks that what we’re doing at the moment is good enough. We are committed to a national reform mission that is based on raising standards and raising attainment level, and we will learn from the best, wherever that may be.