8. What action is the Minister taking to improve educational opportunities for young people in each local authority area across Wales? OAQ53962

Our national mission is to deliver an education system that is a source of national pride and which enjoys public confidence. In partnership with local authorities and the regions, we are delivering high-quality educational opportunities across the whole of our nation, ensuring every learner has their chance to reach their full potential.

Thank you. The Learning and Work Institute's youth opportunity index provides an invaluable insight into the opportunities available to our young people across Wales. Having considered the findings, however, I cannot disagree with the institute's conclusion that there are some stark inequalities across Wales. It has shown that young people are more likely to have fewer qualifications and have poorer access to higher level study in the most economically deprived areas in Wales, a good example being Conwy, which has a relatively strong higher education index score of 81; Flintshire is less than half of this. Minister, the index does seem to indicate that opportunities in education remain unevenly distributed across Wales. What measures are you taking to address this?

Well, as I referred to earlier, we are providing unprecedented amounts of financial support to educate children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds via our pupil development grant. We continue to maintain education maintenance allowance for those children from a poorer background, allowing them to be able to stay on in school or in further education, and we have introduced the most generous system of maintenance grant support for those people from a poorer background who want to study at a higher education level. Of course, it should not be the case that a pupil's destiny is dictated by the size of their parents' bank balance, but I have to say to the Member who sits on those benches: the effects of poverty on a child's education are devastating, and the schools I go to say to me that it is getting worse and worse every year, and we are trying to pick up the pieces and mitigate for that in our school system, and the Member should be mindful of that when she asks such questions.

I thank the Minister.