Welsh-medium Education

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 3 July 2019.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 2:02, 3 July 2019

Well, Alun, yes indeed. All children in Wales have that right to receive their education through the medium of Welsh, if that's what they and their parents choose. Certainly, sometimes, parents and children face significant logistical disadvantage in accessing that right, often travelling significant distances to be able to enact that right. I am acutely aware of some of the changes with regard to post-16 travel that local authorities are consulting on. One of the strange things about Government is that I am not responsible for the learner travel policy. I'm sure many people would find it surprising that, as education Minister, I'm not responsible for it, but my colleague Ken Skates is, and I can assure the Member that my staff and the Minister with responsibility for the language overall are in discussions with Ken Skates on how we can address some of these challenges. Because what we know is that, in many areas, access to post-16 Welsh-medium provision is not available in a similar geographical way that it would be for English-medium tuition, and I don't want anybody not to have that opportunity of continuum because of some of these changes. And there are ongoing discussions in Government about how we can solve this.