Sorry, I had a problem with the unmute. A lot of what I'll say now will echo what our Conservative shadow Minister for education has already said, but I do think it's important to reiterate some of the points that she made.

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in widespread disruption to so many sectors of our Welsh economy. Some of the economic damage being inflicted will be irreparable, and for everyone in full-time education, decisions being taken here and now will cast a long shadow. Young people currently taking qualifications get one shot at their education, and the impact on their studies has already caused significant distress.

Students entering universities and colleges this month faced the ordeal of school closures just weeks before they were due to take their A-level examinations, where many of them will have almost concluded five terms of study. Having suffered the emotional turmoil of the results fiasco earlier this month, young people face fresh hurdles as many of them begin further or higher education. Young people have missed out on so many rites of passage, and we all need to do all we can to ensure that they miss out on as very little as possible. One of the best experiences of going to university is learning to live independently and make some new friends, yet the restrictions on social interaction will limit these opportunities.

As point 5 of our motion makes clear, there has been no proposed reduction in tuition fees this year, even though many students won't even be setting foot in a classroom or a lecture theatre. Of course, there are ways to embrace new technology and use of virtual meetings like this as a way to complement learning, but it shouldn't be a wholesale replacement. Students should expect some face-to-face contact, but clearly it's for universities and colleges, with robust guidance from our Welsh Government, to establish the safest ways of operating. The overriding priority has to be ensuring that learning is continuous and that there are rigorous plans in place to ensure continuity of courses, even if COVID regulations become stricter and, in a worst-case scenario, we face another lockdown.

We all recognise the critical role that FE colleges and universities have in upskilling our workforce to meet the gargantuan challenge of rebuilding the Welsh economy in, hopefully, a post-COVID world, and we all need to recognise that Wales post COVID will look and feel very different from what it was before. The growth in online social interaction is almost certainly here to stay, and that in itself represents challenges in ensuring we have a workforce with the skills to meet demand. Nearly half of employers surveyed by the Open University acknowledged that apprenticeship and work-based learning initiatives would be vital to their organisation's coronavirus recovery over the next year. It is essential, therefore, that disruption to our students' education is kept to a minimum.

Point 6 of our motion will call for action from Welsh Government. Students need to have confidence that what they are paying for in fees is fair for what they are actually getting. Critically, we need swift measures to tackle digital exclusion and ensure that all learners have a means of accessing all aspects of their course. ColegauCymru has noted that there continue to be significant shortfalls of provision of ICT equipment, software and connectivity, and when it comes to the risk of increasing the digital divide, that's something that's very apparent and a worry of my constituents, I know, in South Wales East. They go on to say that, despite the best efforts to maintain learning, it is inevitable that some of the outcomes of traineeships, apprenticeships and programmes such as Jobs Growth Wales will be disrupted. A recent survey from the National Union of Students showed that more than a quarter of university students were unable to access online learning, whilst more than a third did not consider that the online provision was a good standard or quality. It's something that we need to be concerned about.

I'd also like to hear from the Minister about the implications of any changes to the syllabus for key stage 5, specifically for entry requirements for further and higher education, as now is the time that current year 13 pupils will be making decisions about their next steps. The past few months have been a horrendous ordeal for so many of our young people, and as Andrew R.T. Davies said earlier today, it must have had a severe impact on a lot of their mental health. So, I hope the outcome of today's debate is that we can all agree and come up with ways to make it fairer for them. I commend the motion.