7. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education: Digital Skills and Coding

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:30 pm on 1 May 2018.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 6:30, 1 May 2018

I'd like to thank the Member for his welcome to the statement and the work that the Welsh Government is doing in this area. He raises an interesting proposition about the curriculum at Wales's universities. What I should tell him is that any even sniff of Government interference in the autonomy of our academic institutions is something that I would wish to avoid. The curriculum and offer of each individual university is really a matter for them, but, like you, I'm glad that, in Wales's universities, we have a strong tradition in many of the subjects, including maths. Computer science, as I said, is particularly strong in Swansea. There is a table that comes out about what happens to people when they've done a certain degree, and what their destination is. Swansea computing does particularly well in finding its graduates some very well-paid jobs only a matter of months after their graduation. So, it's certainly something that the students who take that course do very well. But it really is a matter for the universities. What I'm keen to do is harness, in the universities, the expertise that they have within their departments, across their curriculum, and to be able to use their expertise to help us build up capacity in our schools system, which was one of the reasons why we are investing, as we are, via the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, in these universities, and we have done previously with Technocamps, because we recognise that this is a collective endeavour—individual schools, the private sector and enterprise, as well as our universities. By working together, we can provide a really fantastic offer for our children.