Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:16 pm on 18 September 2018.
Thank you very much. I don’t think that it matters whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist; it’s going to happen, and so we have to prepare for automation and how that’s going to have an impact on us as individuals and as a society. There’s no point in us pretending that we can do anything about that; it has started and there will be progress, and it will move very quickly, I think. So, it is important that we do prepare for that.
One of the things that we’ve scoped out at present is the possibility of creating individual learning accounts, where people would have the right to have credit to go and study where they’re in work, but we’ll only give them an opportunity to study where we know we have a deficit in the workplace. So, of course, digital skills will be part of that. So, we’re aware, of course, that there’s always an issue of funding and where we’re going to obtain it for that kind of scheme, but in terms of the thinking and what we’d like to do, then that’s the direction that we’d like to move in.
Of course, adult learning, of all the things that have had an impact as an outcome of austerity, is an area that has been dealt a huge blow. We heard yesterday in England that they’ve done some analysis, and they’ve also suffered. So, we’ve had to focus our work there on vital skills in order to ensure that we can have something out of this area, but you will be aware that we are waiting to hear now what the outcomes are of that review that we’re carrying out. To me, what’s important is that we don’t take all of the responsibility as a Government. We all have a responsibility, and there’s a responsibility on employers as well to ensure that they also help to develop the skills of their workforce. So, it’s not right for this to just only fall on our shoulders.
In terms of Welsh language apprenticeships, we’re keeping a detailed eye on that, and one of the issues here is that employers have to be part of that. So, it’s not something where we can say, ‘Do this’; they create the apprenticeshipes and the people who take the apprenticeships decide whether they want to do it through the medium of Welsh. So, it’s very difficult to say, ‘You have to do this’. Of course, we want to see an increase, and the percentage of those who do a part of their course through the medium of Welsh is higher than the figure that you mentioned.
In terms of the SkillsFuture scheme in Singapore, you will be aware that the chair of our panel on the review of digital innovation is an expert on this area in Singapore, so I do hope that something will emerge from that. We’ll see whether we have more details from him.