Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:57 pm on 6 June 2018.
Now, I want to recognise that the Government, to a certain extent, accepted the principle that action is needed in this area, because we can see what’s happening in the context of the funding of Master’s degrees over the next year. From what I understand, the Government will provide £3,000 to students from Wales to study in Wales, and that will be implemented in various different ways in different universities in the year to come, and then, of course, there will be a more uniform process across Wales, if I’ve understood things correctly, which will be introduced from there on in.
But we then need to see, therefore—if we accept that principle, we do need to ensure that we learn lessons and identify from the data what impact that kind of incentive has on decisions made by that particular cohort. I would like to hear how the Welsh Government will measure the impact of this assessment on the decisions taken by the students in terms of where they study their Master’s. Then, perhaps, of course, that might strengthen the argument in extending it to a broader cohort in the undergraduate sector as well. And certainly, that is something that Diamond mentioned, as I’ve already mentioned earlier.