<p>Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders</p>

Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 3 October 2017.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 1:43, 3 October 2017

Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, recently the Cabinet Secretary for Education delivered a speech that highlighted that there were secondary schools in Wales that until recently had not been entering a single pupil for a GCSE science exam—not a single pupil in secondary schools in Wales. Also, there had been a tendency for many schools to enter pupils for the easier BTEC courses, where, in 2016, there was a 99 per cent pass rate. Estyn, in a recent report, have highlighted the difficulties that some science subjects face in the way they’re taught within Welsh schools. Don’t you think it is vital, if we are going to be aspirational about delivering a high-wage economy, a skilled economy, that we have more pupils entered in the sciences? And, what confidence can you give that, in the PISA examinations in 2018, we will see real improvement in the sciences? We’ve gone back by 20, from 505 to 485, from 2006 to 2016. It has to be a key area of improvement. Yet, on your watch, we’ve got schools that haven’t been entering pupils for science at all.