6. Will the Cabinet Secretary outline plans to improve further education to support more people to gain qualifications in Wales? OAQ51681

'Taking Wales Forward', the Government's programme to 2021, clearly sets out our belief that the future prosperity and stability of our nation depends on the skills and values of our people. The Government recognises that further education learning, whether lifelong, part-time, or work based, is essential for individual and national prosperity.

Thank you. Page 8 of 'Education in Wales' discusses the need for a strong commitment to effective collaboration as well as the integration of services where appropriate. Could you expand on what the opportunities to collaborate more effectively are in terms of colleges and schools? For example, the Welsh Government used to fund 14 to 19-year-old fora through the medium of Welsh, and this did try and promote collaboration between those sectors specifically. Are there any similar proposals in the pipeline, and could you tell us about those, if there are?

It is important that we do see better collaboration between schools and further education. Now, we are looking at how we can see that collaboration through the post-compulsory education and training changes that we will see in future. We'll take competition out of the system because that can create problems at present. But I do think it is worth stating that there is quite a high level of success in FE at present. About 86 per cent of people do succeed in the field of FE, so that is quite an important step. What we do need is to go even further and push those standards even higher and constantly.