Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:47 pm on 11 December 2019.
Darren, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to interrupt you because I'm running out of time. Perhaps you'd like to finish your point in intervening on one of your colleagues. I was referring to points made in the speech, not necessarily to the motion. But, Suzy did, in fact, separately make it clear that there are things to congratulate pupils and staff on what they've achieved.
So, we can't support the Conservative motion unamended. But, I think it is correct to leave the factual bits in the first part of the motion where they are, because they are just facts. But, we certainly can't support the Government amendment either. I get tired of how often in this place, with my own portfolio hat on, I have to use the words 'self-congratulatory' and 'complacent', and I find myself having to do so in Siân Gwenllian's place today. I have heard the Minister say that there is more work to do, and we are not where we want to be. But, some acknowledgement in the amendment that there are problems would have made it easier for us to consider supporting it. So, as I said, Llywydd, between a rock and a hard place, and I'll turn briefly now to our amendment.
It is appropriate that we should be debating this today. It's very important. I'm grateful to the Conservatives for putting this on the agenda. Their description of the situation, though partial, is not inaccurate. But we do believe that, in principle, the direction that the Government is taking now with the new curriculum has the potential to be transformatory. If we can do this, if we can make it work, this could lead to a transformation in the opportunities that we offer children and young people in our education system. But, that will not happen unless it is sufficiently resourced.
We are asking the teaching profession—and I declare an interest as a former teacher myself, and half my brothers and sisters, and there are rather a lot of them, are teachers—. We are asking them to do an awful lot. We are asking them to change the way that they work radically. They need to be trained and supported to do that. I think that if it works, we will attract some of the brightest and best young people to work in our education system, because it will be a much better place to work in than something that is so driven by targets and scores and results.
I think that it's also worth saying that the PISA results, while important, are only a partial picture. They don't tell us everything that we need to know, and I don't have time today to talk about my concerns about young people's well-being. It is quite clear that if young people are miserable, they are not going to go on to be effective learners, and they are not going to go on to live the lives that I'm sure we all would want them to live.
So I hope that the Minister will take our amendment—. I know she won't support our amendment, but I hope she'll take the message from our amendment home really, really clearly. We need to look forward now as well as looking back, and we need to acknowledge that, if we want this transformation to happen, it has to be resourced and it has to be supported. That's where Plaid Cymru stands. I'm sure that the Minister will—. I'll have sympathy with the Minister if she says she can't say much about what might be in the next budget because that budget isn't here yet, and we don't know what money's going to be there, but in principle we must have assurances that this radical transformation of our system is going to be properly resourced, because otherwise, if it isn't, it won't work. I urge this Chamber to support our amendment.