Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 1:36 pm on 21 November 2018.
Thank you, Rhun. I, like you, am delighted that these opportunities are being made available for students in north Wales. Obviously, routes into medical school start from the very choices that children make when they take their GCSEs. That's why, this term, we're seeing the roll-out of our reformed Seren programme, which looks to support children earlier in their educational career, providing them with exactly the kind of advice around GCSE options, career aspirations and opportunities at an earlier stage.
Obviously, universities are autonomous bodies and we can't dictate who they admit to their programmes, but I am delighted to say that, following changes to the application and admissions programme both at Cardiff and at Swansea, which are working in partnership with north Wales and west Wales to expand medical education, we have seen an increase in the number of Welsh-domiciled students gaining a place to study medicine at their institutions. So, that is now 30 per cent of students in Cardiff and 50 per cent of students on the Swansea postgraduate programme who are Welsh-domiciled students. In fact, we see a record number of Welsh young people being accepted to medical schools across the United Kingdom. Applications from Welsh-domiciled students to study medicine have again risen by a further 14 per cent for this year's application cycle. So, there is obviously a very keen interest amongst our Welsh school and college students to pursue courses in medicine, and that's why the extension of the number of places at Bangor and in west Wales, in conjunction with Swansea, means that our students, I believe, are well placed to take advantage of that expansion.