6. What strategy is the Welsh Government deploying to increase the number of Welsh-speaking early years practitioners? OAQ54879

The early years sector is vital to our aim of reaching 1 million Welsh speakers. We're working on programmes such as Progress for Success and Camau to develop Welsh language skills within the current workforce and ensuring that those joining the sector can use the language confidently.

Thank you. Minister, you'll be fully aware that there is increasing demand for Welsh-medium education at primary and secondary level, and, in light of that rising trend, I wondered what consideration the Government has given to making a further leap in bilingualism amongst monolingual English-speaking communities by ensuring that the expanded childcare offer, which was primarily in the medium of Welsh, would give three and four-year-olds the ability to absorb bilingualism in the way that the cat laps up a saucer of milk. It seems to me that this is a missed opportunity within this very welcome offer of childcare to families and the cost of caring for young children, as well as to those children. So, given that in a place like Cardiff the early years practitioners are predominantly drawn from English-speaking communities, I wondered what strategy could be employed to rapidly increase the number of people who are excellent early years practitioners as well as Welsh-medium speakers.

So, we do have to be aware that we are very keen to reach this target, but to make that work we have to make sure that we have the right number of people in place who can actually teach. So, that's why we have 350 practitioners who will benefit from this Camau programme. What that is is free access to Welsh language training by childcare and play practitioners. The fact is that we now have this childcare offer and about 30 per cent of that childcare offer is through the medium of Welsh. So, that is really important, that people understand that there's an opportunity there. We've also got Mudiad Meithrin. They run a programme called Croesi'r Bont and this is an immersion system to make sure that people have the skills in childcare development. There's a level 3 diploma that has been developed with Mudiad Meithrin, so people are going through that system. And then, on top of that, our officials are working with the Urdd, and they've got a lot of experience of apprentices and so we're trying to get them to take on more apprentices through the medium of Welsh to look specifically at childcare.