We move to the short debate and I call on Neil Hamilton to speak on the topic he has chosen. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This is an important topic and I'm grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for detained here this afternoon on a nice, sunny day. She and I have many political disagreements, but no-one can deny the spirit and commitment that she brings to her office as Cabinet Secretary for Education, and I certainly pay tribute to all that she has achieved in the years that she's been in this Assembly on her favourite topic, and I mean that as a genuine compliment. 

I've raised this issue once before at First Minister's questions and I've been pilloried by some for, as it appears, attempting to avoid discussion of controversial current affairs topics in schools, or trying to silence children. This is no part of my intention at all. I'm very much in favour of engaging young people in political discussion, but this must be done on an informed and balanced basis. One of the things that I was concerned about in relation to the Welsh baccalaureate is the global citizenship challenge and the way in which the curriculum appears to be devised, and the rather tendentious way in which this has been designed. 

Now, of course controversial topics are bound to be discussed in schools and, as I say, it is right that they should be, but when we deal with issues that are headlined, such as cultural diversity, fair trade, future energy, inequality, poverty, famine, migration, consumerism, and so on, these are all highly political topics, and in this place obviously we have vigorous debates about them. I'm not sure that we have vigorous debates in schools in quite the same way. Now, I'm not saying that schools are teaching these courses deliberately as political propaganda, but I am concerned that there isn't a sufficient diversity of view to make this a more balanced and open debate, and that's why I've decided to raise this this afternoon.

I'd like to give some examples. In a document called 'Skills Knowledge', which is produced—unfortunately I've forgotten my glasses and I can't read the top—. Sorry, here we are; they have come to my rescue. There we go—produced by the Welsh bac, it says, 'What is propaganda? Propaganda is information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively, perhaps by omission, or using loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information presented.'

Now, there is one item in this course called 'ethnocentrism': 'Ethnocentrism is where a person sees a grouping which they identify with to be superior to other groupings.' It goes on to say that this is because they judge another culture solely by the values and standards of their own culture. Of course, seeing other cultures as different doesn't necessarily mean that we see them as superior. The example that was given in this course document of ethnocentrism, bizarrely, is in relation to Cuba and the American invasion of Cuba in 1960, following the Cuban revolution, which brought Fidel Castro to power. Now, it's news to me that the Americans aided Cuban exiles in the invasion of Cuba in 1960 because they regarded America as superior to Cuban people. It was, of course, a geopolitical event at the height of the cold war, and there's a historical context that seems to be wholly missing from the text that describes what happened in Cuba all those years ago. There doesn't appear to be any mention whatsoever of the nature of the Castro regime, which was imposed upon Cuba following the ejection of the equally awful person Fulgencio Batista, who was the dictator of Cuba before Castro succeeded.

This, I think, is deplorable, because if a generation of children is brought up with misconceptions being taught at school in this way, then that is undoubtedly going to bias their view of the subject that that is an example of. Now, of course, the Castro regime has been condemned by human rights organisations roundly over many, many years. Human Rights Watch has said that, under Fidel Castro, the Cuban Government refused to recognise the legitimacy of Cuban human rights organisations, alternative political parties, independent labour unions or a free press. He also denied international monitors, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and international non-governmental organisations like Human Rights Watch, access to the island to investigate human rights conditions. One of the reasons why the Americans supported the invasion of Cuba in 1960 was because they thought that capitalism, free enterprise and democratic societies were superior to communist society. Surely we've enough experience of communism in the last 100 years, perhaps, not to think that that is a challengeable proposition. So, to describe that as an example of ethnocentrism is actually a total misleading of the children who were being taught it. Now, if that is happening in that one area, it can be happening in others as well. This is a very important element of education that is perhaps not being well taught.

There are many other controversial topics where there is another side to the case as well, and I'm not sure that that is taught in school. Just take poverty, for example, and famine. What's the cause of poverty and famine, by and large? Why is it that some countries succeed in creating wealth and others don't, and that some countries have actually gone backwards in the last century, compared with where they were in the early part of the twentieth century? If you look at the richest countries in the world, they're countries like Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, which were nowhere 50 years ago in the tables of wealth creation, whereas Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Argentina have all gone the other way. In the 1920s, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world, and thanks to decades of misgovernment by leftist and quasi-fascistic political parties and kleptocratic leaders, Argentina's economy was ruined. So, there are many reasons why wealth is created, but generally speaking, state control isn't one of them.

In relation to poverty in developing countries, the intellectual infrastructure of wealth creation is simply not there. Is 'trade not aid' taught in schools, for example? Professor Peter Bauer, who was a professor of international development economics when I was a student back in the 1960s, said that aid, generally, is taxpayers' money that is collected from poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries, and we've seen many examples of that demonstrated over the years. Now, I'm not suggesting that overseas aid is always bad, of course—lots of aid projects are good—but if you convey the impression that the only way in which poor countries can become rich countries is by a transfer of wealth from richer countries, then that is, again, a misunderstanding of the nature of the economic process. Competition is a discovery process: bad ideas don't succeed, good ideas do. So, these are issues that ought to be properly factored into the curriculum. We have issues such as intergenerational wealth transfer, as well, in relation to poverty. In this generation, we frequently hear people talking about austerity, but what is austerity? Austerity is our experience of the last seven years of Conservative Government where the national debt has doubled. Now, that is an intergenerational wealth transfer; we are spending today money that will have to be paid back by generations of tomorrow. Are these issues properly dealt with in the Welsh bac course? I've seen no evidence of that whatsoever.

There is a course called 'consumerism'. Now, there's a loaded term, if ever there was one. I looked up the definition of this in a dictionary and it was described as 'the belief that increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable'. Well, there are not many people, I think, who would regard the increasing consumption of goods as being a bad thing, and generally speaking, the poorer you are, the more goods you want to consume. This is a good thing. So, why are we teaching something called consumerism to children in schools? It all goes back, I suppose, to the Rousseauian idea of the noble savage—back to nature, the simple life where we scratch a living from the soil—but this isn't the kind of lifestyle that normal people want to pursue.

'Normal' people?

Yes. Normal people, real people. Let's say ‘real people’ then. [Interruption.] Well, I don't recognise many faces around here of people who've followed, in their own private lives, a hair-shirt austerity programme. We all enjoy very comfortable—[Interruption.] Well, we all enjoy extremely comfortable lives, earning very large sums of money compared with the average and I think it is patronising and condescending to describe the desires of ordinary people as 'consumerism'.

Global warming is another controversial issue—[Interruption.] Yes, I am going to mention global warming, because the reaction of the education Secretary actually exemplifies everything that I'm talking about this afternoon. Because I hold views on global warming that are in a very small minority in this Assembly, but the way in which the education Secretary reacts when I raise issues of this kind is that I'm not entitled to hold these views, because there is no intellectual foundation for them at all, whereas, in fact, there is a very respectable debate going on amongst meteorologists and climatologists on these issues. Are organisations like the Global Warming Policy Foundation used in providing course materials on these issues in the Welsh baccalaureate? I very much doubt it. And yet, if we look at climate history, we've had cycles when global climate was warming and others when it was cooling. Roman times were very hot and medieval times were very hot, and in between we had little ice ages—we had one at the end of the seventeenth century. So, if we look at observational facts, then they don't actually bear out the climatic models that are based upon computer predictions.

These are controversies, and you may disagree with them, but we should certainly teach the other side of the case if we're to have a balanced debate on the topic, because we're imposing massive costs upon people by artificially increasing the price of energy. It may be a good thing that we're doing these things, I don't know. We don't have the means of being able to decide, because we don't understand the facts. Climatology itself is a highly complex matter. There isn't the historical data available anyway to compare one period with another, so we can't actually draw any conclusions from the very small changes that have taken place in temperature globally in recent years, because we can't compare with the previous generations in an arithmetic way. And we don't know, anyway, how far current trends will last.

So, there are limitations to the information upon which theories are based, and I don't believe that that is fully reflected either in the teaching that is undertaken in schools. All I'm saying in the course of this debate is that we should recognise that in all of these controversial topics, there is another side of the case, and that should be put so that children, yes, should be able to argue and make up their minds. We shouldn't treat this as a kind of article of religion, where there is no argument on the other side of the case—[Interruption.] Lee Waters says, 'Respect science'. Well, the science that I'm talking about is respected by Professor Christopher Essex, professor of applied mathematics at the University of Western Ontario, who is the chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, by Sir Ian Byatt, director general of water services for England and Wales, Professor Freeman Dyson, fellow of the Royal Society, world renowned theoretical physicist and professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, by Professor William Happer, professor of physics at Princeton, Professor David Henderson, head of the economics and statistics department at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and many, many others in the list of those who support the attitude of scepticism that is the essence of the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s work. It's not that they are pursuing a particular agenda to impose a view, because there is a variety of views, even within the Global Warming Policy Foundation—[Interruption.] 

Thank you. 

So, I believe what we should be doing in schools is teaching children that there are different views on things, even highly controversial topics where people sometimes see them in terms of black and white, encouraging argument, encouraging disputation, but at the end of the day teaching them to be critical. That's the most important thing that we can do, I think, in school: teaching children that they must be critical in their intelligence, always question and always look for facts, and not take political propaganda as truth.

Thank you. Can I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Education to reply to the debate? Kirsty Williams. 

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I believe that the Welsh bac plays a key part in our national mission to raise standards by improving both the skills and the knowledge of our young people. It has been designed to give younger people a broader experience than they usually have through their traditional academic education. It prepares learners for life in the real world, equipping them with the skills to think for themselves and to take responsibility for independent research. Ironically, these are the very skills that will help young people to see through indoctrination, as mentioned in Mr Hamilton's title, if that was happening. 

Through the Welsh bac, learners can develop their knowledge and understanding of society and the community in which they live. They can also develop an awareness of global issues, events and perspectives and, of course, we expect headteachers and principals to use their professional judgment in determining the right learning programme for their learners. But I believe that it is our duty to provide future generations with the skills, knowledge and, I dare say, the evidence that they need to play a full and active role in their communities and the wider society, and the Welsh bac will help us fulfil that duty.

I am not particularly familiar with the resources quoted by Mr Hamilton, or the ones that he has referenced in his speech this afternoon, but he has offered up no evidence that anything but what I've just described is happening in our schools. The global citizenship challenge is an important area of study, I believe, and it points students and teachers to use a range of sources and materials to examine issues that are listed in the curriculum, and to consider other relevant factors. Indeed, for a child's work to be assessed and to pass in their personal standpoint area of this qualification—and I quote—they

‘must include: Differing views and opinions about global issues’ in their written assessments. They have to outline relevant factors, as well as forming their own opinion at the end of that piece of work. Those are the assessment criteria that are used to assess students' work in this regard. I would quote again that they must include other people's views or differing viewpoints and arguments on the topic they have selected.’

Now, it's not just me that believes that this is an important qualification. Qualifications Wales, an independent body, recently conducted a review of the qualification that concluded that learners are developing skills that are beneficial to their future. They stated that the principles of the Welsh baccalaureate and the skills challenge certificate are strong and they are relevant. Furthermore, they strongly advise that the skills challenge certificate element of the qualification is retained and updated.

Deputy Presiding Officer, as is to be expected with any review, there are recommendations for updates and refinements, and I would expect nothing less. The report noted that some aspects of this design and assessment are more complex than they need to be for children and practitioners, and there is some duplication of content and assessments across its components. Now, I welcome the actions that Qualifications Wales will be taking within their realm of responsibility, and I will soon be setting out my response to their report, and we will work with Qualifications Wales, the WJEC and the consortia to review their recommendations and implement changes. It's also worth noting that businesses and employers also recognise what the qualification can bring. To quote from the review:

'This report found that the Skills Challenge Certificate is a valuable qualification that helps learners to develop crucial skills. The skills that employers consistently say young people need to succeed in the workplace'.

Mr Philip Blaker, the chief executive of Qualifications Wales said, and I quote, 

'many teachers say the Skills Challenge Certificate is rewarding to teach and that students say they enjoy gaining new skills', and the chance to focus on topics that are really of interest to them.

We also know that many schools and students recognise the benefits of the qualification, and we regularly receive feedback from schools and colleges on how the Welsh bac is benefiting our learners. Last year, Neath Port Talbot College's sixth-form academy achieved an amazing pass rate of 25 per cent of students gaining an A* or A, 60 per cent getting A* to B and 86 per cent getting A* to C. And more than 200 students achieved the advanced skills challenge certificate. These are outstanding results that have enabled our student and young people access to a range of university places and employment opportunities. As we heard from a former pupil at Dŵr-y-Felin Comprehensive School who achieved the advanced skills challenge certificate alongside three other A-levels: 

'Studying the WBQ enabled me to develop a range of skills that I would not have achieved from A Level study alone. In particular, my Individual Investigation on anxiety and depression will undoubtedly be beneficial in Cardiff University where I will be studying Psychology'.

These are, Deputy Presiding Officer, real examples of how the Welsh bac is benefiting people in Wales. I have also heard the Welsh bac being criticised recently because it is not accepted by universities. Let me make it absolutely clear to the students who are currently embarked on their Welsh bac journey—this is simply not true. The majority of universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, increasingly value the skills challenge certificate, and the Welsh baccalaureate for the skills that it has developed. I know this, because I've spoken to the admission tutors of both those universities, to hear from them directly, and many are prepared to accept it for entry requirement purposes. The advanced challenge certificate is comparable to an A-level, and universities across the UK are very positive, with the majority prepared to accept the new advanced Welsh bac as part of their entry requirements. It's worth noting that it attracts the same UCAS points as an A-level. Some universities have reduced the grade tariff required for some courses where applicants have achieved the Welsh bac. This is an indicator of their confidence in the qualification.

So, to sum up, a recent review of the qualification was positive, teachers enjoy teaching it, students enjoy studying it, and employers say it provides young people with the skills needed in the workplace. And many universities recognise it for their entry requirements. Those that don't still value it for its broader skills and experiences that it gives young people, and it can enhance their application. So, I am clear that we will continue to encourage universal adoption of the Welsh bac because it makes sense, because the evidence tells us that it's worth while and because I believe it will help us raise standards, reduce the attainment gap and deliver an education system that is the source of national pride and public confidence where young people will have the very skills to be able to challenge the views of the likes of Mr Hamilton.

Thank you very much. That brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you. 

The meeting ended at 18:34.