1. How does the Welsh Government intend to improve academic outcomes for school children? OAQ54771

Llywydd, introducing our new curriculum, boosting the pupil development grant and pressing ahead with the greatest investment in twenty-first century schools are amongst the measures the Welsh Government is taking to improve outcomes for schoolchildren.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. On the eighteenth of this month, Qualifications Wales stated that the GCSE brand is 'valued and widely recognised', and should not be ditched as part of the Government's education reforms. This is in direct contrast to the future generations commissioner, who wants GCSEs to be scrapped. I agree with Qualifications Wales, and think that, although GCSEs may need updating, we're doing no favours to our young people if they leave our education system with qualifications that no-one outside Wales has heard of, recognises or understands the level they're at. Who do you agree with, First Minister—Qualifications Wales or the future generations commissioner?

Well, Llywydd, there is a very important consultation going on at the moment, to make sure that the qualifications that we offer to our young people in Wales are aligned with the new curriculum, and deliver the sort of active participance in learning that that curriculum is designed to provide. It's a consultation, and the views of the children's commissioner, of course, will be read very carefully as part of that, and then we will rely on the advice of Qualifications Wales, the expert body set up exactly for this purpose. 

First Minister, to improve academic outcomes, of course, children and young people have to be somewhere that they can learn, and if they're being off-rolled to boost a school's apparent academic record, then they're not necessarily learning. I know that your Minister is completely against the practice of off-rolling, obviously, but what immediate action is the Government taking to both look into allegations with particular schools, and to crack down on any schools that are gaming the system?

Well, Llywydd, just to add my voice to the same issue: off-rolling of young people in order, artificially, to make it appear as though results in a school are better than they otherwise would be is completely unacceptable. Those young people deserve the best of educations, and the fullest consideration, and we know they are sometimes children who provide challenges in the classroom. That's why the education Minister has said what she has said. She has instituted a series of measures immediately to make sure that we have the best information in this area, and to alter the way in which assessments are carried out in schools, so that the incentives, the perverse incentives that might otherwise have been there, and which some schools are said to have unfairly exploited—that those opportunities are closed off in the future.

Wales participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment tests for the first time in 2006, and the latest set of results is to be published next week. As you know, the Welsh scores in the last round in 2015 were lower than the scores in 2006 in all areas, and the Welsh results in that year were also lower than the results of the other three nations of the United Kingdom, and lower than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average in the three areas: literacy, maths and science.

In looking at the data that’s been recently published, including Estyn annual reports, do you see encouraging signs before publication by the OECD next Tuesday?

Well, Llywydd, there are many things that children do in our schools that are encouraging to us here in Government, and also encouraging to parents throughout Wales. Of course, schools, teachers and the pupils themselves are working very hard to do the best in the system that we have, and we have worked hard with the OECD. They have said that the things that we are doing in Wales—that we really are on the right road. We will see what the PISA figures show when we receive them next week.