Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 27 June 2017.
So, you’re kicking it off again into the future then. The situation, First Minister, is worse than you are prepared to admit. The overall number of trainee teachers has dropped every single year since 2011, and the correspondence and conversations that I’ve had with teachers show that there is a deep problem here. From your answer, I’m not convinced at all that you’ve got plans to treat this situation with any sense of urgency. What I want to see is our teaching profession supported. Why don’t you talk to teachers and their trade unions and ask them what can be done in the immediate term to help with their workload and their mental well-being? You’re putting things in place now, which may well pay off in the future, but that decline in numbers has been evident for several years now. It’s not a new problem. The crisis is here, and the crisis is now. You’ve previously admitted that you took your eye off the ball in education, and at that point in time you indicated that your Government would up its game. Since you’ve made that admission in education, what exactly have you been doing?