I was very proud to read in the annual report that the Bryngwyn and Glan y môr confederation in my constituency in Llanelli and Burry Port has been cited for its good practice on leadership; the Cabinet Secretary's own old primary school, Ysgol y Bynea, highlighted; and the Heol Goffa special school was also singled out for special mention. We do have some excellent leadership and practice in Llanelli and across Wales.

But I'd like to focus on the significant areas of concern in this report, and in particular around digital. I think, as Darren Millar implied earlier, there's no point us soft-soaping this debate; we need to be rigorous and unforgiving in looking at the weaknesses, and I am frankly alarmed by what this report says yet again around digital learning.

In just under two thirds of primary schools there are, I quote, 'important shortcomings' in the standards of ICT. Two thirds of primary schools—important shortcomings in ICT. This is what Estyn says: 'In these schools'—and in many secondary schools—'teachers lack knowledge and confidence.' There is

'a lack of a clear vision about ICT from senior leaders.'

Pupils are not being given the chance to apply skills in relevant contexts. It goes on: across Welsh schools as a whole, pupils' progress in ICT has not kept up with advancements in technology, and 

'pupils do not apply their...skills well across the curriculum and their ICT skills are often limited to a narrow range of applications.'

It also says schools are not auditing the digital competence of their staff to allow them to train and upskill teachers, and nor do initial teacher training centres equip trainee teachers with the skills they need.

We should let that sink in, Llywydd. In two thirds of primary schools there are important shortcomings and in many secondary schools teachers lack knowledge and confidence. This is alarming. Any one of those sentences should, in any normal news day, grab the headlines as being a massive cause for concern, especially given what we know about how vital digital skills already are, and are becoming more so by the month. This is a deeply worrying account of the way our schools are teaching young people. I really do think this is a stop-the-clocks moment, Llywydd. We talk of a self-improving system, but there is little sign of improvement when it comes to digital skills. Last year's report said much the same.

Now, there is criticism due to the Welsh Government here, and I'll come to that in a moment, but most of all there's culpability on the whole school system for its failure to rise to this challenge: on the consortia; on governors; on heads; on individual professionals. This is not good enough.

I've raised this with the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary—the need to equip pupils with coding skills—on a number of occasions, and this criticism goes way beyond coding; it goes across the whole digital spectrum. Coding is just an important subset. Last June, the Welsh Government launched 'Cracking the code' with £1.3 million spread over the whole Assembly term to help develop these skills before the new curriculum is brought in, and a further £930,000 for the technocamps—together, just over £2 million for the whole of Wales over the next three years. They're also piloting Minecraft for Education to inspire first-time coders with Minecraft code builder, and given the enthusiasm my own kids have for Minecraft, I think this is an excellent initiative, just the sort of thing we should be doing. But it's being run in 10 schools. Ten schools. There are more than 1,600 schools in Wales, and we are running this coding project in 10 of them. Again, this is not good enough.

Just as oil fueled the industrial age, data and digital are fuelling advances in the artificial intelligence age. There is a reason why China is teaching artificial intelligence and deep learning in their middle schools. We are hugely disadvantaging young people by not giving them the skills and confidence to thrive in this world.

And we are missing a trick also, Cabinet Secretary, by not harnessing advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning in the way we teach. So-called edtech innovations offer the promise of relieving teachers from the tyranny of marking, data tracking and developing differentiated teaching strategies for individual learners. Edtech can do all of this. Teachers can be freed from all this to do what they came to do—to teach. We should be all over this like a rash, but, as Estyn’s quite frankly terrifying findings yet again this year show, we are not.