Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 4 June 2019.

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Photo of Paul Davies Paul Davies Conservative 1:47, 4 June 2019

First Minister, these figures are very, very worrying, because the number of those training to teach at secondary level was 40 per cent below the target, while the number of students taking primary level courses was 11 per cent below the target. This means 370 fewer students gained qualified teacher status in 2017-18 compared to four years ago, and we've also seen the number of teacher trainee entrants from Wales on secondary school courses in Wales drop by 37 per cent over the last four years, while the number starting to train in England has actually increased by 34 per cent. Indeed, the number of students from England coming to train here has also fallen by over a half. What this exposes, First Minister, is a pattern. Your Government has proven itself incapable of recruiting teachers for the next generation of Welsh schoolchildren, unable to persuade Wales's talent pool to train here, and feckless at making Wales an attractive place for others to come and train. Can you therefore give this Assembly one specific example of a working policy for actually reversing this worrying trend, which has been presided over by successive Welsh Labour Governments?