Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 1:49 pm on 9 January 2019.
Well, I'm thinking that this should be an area of concern for you, then, because if the WLGA doesn't seem to understand what a teacher-designed system is going to look like, how on earth are they going to be able to help distribute the money that you're giving them now, through this ring-fenced system, to help encourage teachers to learn how to deliver a system that they themselves have designed but that the WLGA doesn't understand.
Can we just move on now to the education improvement grant that you've decided to cut by 10 per cent this year? One of the key aims, of course, of the education improvement grant was to address learners' barriers to learning and to improve inclusion, which I'm sure we would all appreciate. In areas with high levels of Welsh language education, such as Gwynedd, it is entirely reasonable to foresee that one of the those barriers to education could be a lack of Welsh language skills for people moving into the area. When you took the decision to cut the education improvement grant, I wonder if you could explain to me what assessment was carried out to see what effect that decision would have on providers who were helping people moving to the area to improve their Welsh language skills in order to access their education. And also, on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the rights of those children to an education, in making the cuts and in moving this service, I suspect that there's going to be a problem in evidencing the fact that children's right to an education is being properly observed. Thank you.