5. Statement by the Minister For Education: Update on Education Provision

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:39 pm on 3 June 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 3:39, 3 June 2020

Well, Dai, the Bill is not structured in a way that—. English is on the face of the Bill for all stages of education, and the Bill treats English and Welsh in exactly the same way. The Bill also allows for English to be disapplied in those settings where immersion is well understood to be the appropriate way in which Welsh language skills can be acquired by our very youngest students. What I want out of our curriculum is for more of our students to leave their statutory period of education as bilingual citizens of Wales, and there is nothing in the Bill that prevents that from happening. As I said, conversely, it actually allows for a statutory underpinning of the immersion process by allowing English to be disapplied in those settings. 

I think there is an issue here about the content of a curriculum, the linguistic status of a school and the medium of tuition within the school. I would suggest to the Member that those are three different things, and what the curriculum Bill concentrates on is the curriculum. It does not focus on the medium of tuition, nor does it focus on the language category of an individual school.