Item 3 on the agenda this afternoon is a statement by the Minister for Education on the approach to qualifications in 2021, and I call on the Minister, Kirsty Williams. 

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Today, I want to share with you my policy decision on the approach to qualifications in Wales in 2021. As I do that, I would first like to thank Qualifications Wales and the independent review, chaired by Louise Casella, for their considered recommendations and advice to me. I have drawn equally on their thinking in coming to my position. Alongside this, I have met with headteachers and college leaders, universities, and with learners directly to hear their views. I have also looked carefully at the early analysis of the around 4,000 views expressed in the survey that the independent review undertook.  

Deputy Presiding Officer, this is a time like no other. I am providing clarity and certainty at as early a stage as possible, to set out a path that is deliverable and, crucially, is as resilient as possible to the uncertainties of the coming year. Again, this is an exceptional year, but exceptional in a different way to qualifications in 2020. This year’s exam cohorts were not only out of school and college during the summer term, but they have also already experienced inconsistencies in their learning experience during this term. 

In some schools and colleges, COVID-19 has required pupils to self-isolate for weeks at a time. Some schools have, at times, even temporarily had to close. Other schools and colleges have been much more fortunate to date, but we cannot, I cannot, be confident as to what will happen for the rest of the school year. And it is this ongoing uncertainty and ensuring fairness, equity and well-being for learners that guide my thinking on qualifications for 2021.

My other key consideration is the need to provide time for good-quality teaching and learning experiences this year, to ensure that learners have the knowledge, the skills and the confidence to progress to their next stage. I want learners to be in school or college enjoying positive learning experiences, not just preparing for assessments. It is on this basis, and in line with the recommendation of both Qualifications Wales and the independent review, that I intend to direct Qualifications Wales that there should be no end-of-year exams for GCSE or AS-level qualifications for 2021. I can also confirm that it is my intention that there will be no final exams for A-level learners, who will follow a similar process as for GCSEs and AS qualifications. I have seen concerns that we cannot predict the status of the virus in the summer and, therefore, it could be difficult to physically hold exams, and it is true that there could be challenges. However, I must reiterate that the primary reason for my policy is down to fairness, and the time learners will spend in schools and colleges will have varied hugely. It is simply unfair to think that the exams could be conducted on a level playing field.

I have consulted with universities, who have highlighted that their priority is for students to have covered core aspects of their course. They have confirmed that they are used to accepting many different types of qualifications. They expect a transparent and robust approach that provides evidence of a learner’s knowledge and ability. And my intended approach does just that, as it is designed to maximise the time for teaching and learning. Instead of end-of-year exams, we intend to work with teachers and lecturers to take forward teacher-managed assessments. These should include assessments that will be externally set and marked, but delivered within a classroom environment under teacher supervision. Teachers will have flexibility as to when it is best to undertake them, in the context of results timetables. My expectation is that these will form the basis for centre-based outcomes, linked to an agreed national approach, providing consistency across Wales. It is my intention that this applies to GCSEs, AS-levels and A-levels approved by Qualifications Wales. The proposed approach to this will be developed by school and college leaders, and supported by Welsh Government and advised by Qualifications Wales and WJEC. In developing the centre-based outcome proposal, we intend to learn from the experiences of 2020 and be informed also by the second stage of the independent review's work. It is my policy intention that there will be a common approach across Wales through WJEC, providing transparency and rigour to assure universities and colleges of our approach.

Turing to vocational qualifications, as Members will be aware, the vocational qualification landscape is different. A significant amount of vocational learning is delivered on a roll-on, roll-off basis, with learners starting throughout the year. Most vocational qualifications taken by learners in Wales are also available in the other UK nations. To ensure consistency, I have asked Qualifications Wales to work closely with other regulators to ensure a pragmatic approach that works in learners’ interests and gives them clarity about the way forward. Guidance for vocational qualifications was published last month, which sets out the principles that awarding bodies must apply when making adaptations in response to the impact of COVID-19. This means that timetabled examinations for vocational qualifications for the summer series will continue in order to maintain a consistent approach across Wales, England and Northern Ireland. However, my officials and Qualifications Wales will keep this position under review and we will continue to work closely with other qualification regulators in light of the public health situation.

Today, I am also establishing a design and delivery advisory group of school and college leaders, the regulator and the awarding body. This group will be chaired by Geraint Rees and supported by Welsh Government officials. The group will not stray into individual organisational accountabilities, those of schools, the regulator or the awarding body, but they will develop policy proposals for our approach, including detailed proposals for the range of assessment and appeals processes. The regulator and awarding body for Wales will provide expertise to the group on assessment, and I expect to consider and confirm our policy direction by the end of December to provide time for implementation from January. The group will then, over the course of the year, advise me on the delivery of this package of work and I will expect to see our equalities priorities front and centre.

Deputy Presiding Officer, this remains a highly challenging year. I have set a course today that removes pressures from learners and provides clear time for teaching and learning. I look to our schools, colleges, qualifications bodies and the wider education sector to work co-operatively and collaboratively through the year to support our learners and enable them to progress with confidence. Diolch yn fawr.

Can I begin as well by thanking Louise Casella and Qualifications Wales for the advice that they've given the Minister on this? I have to begin, though, by saying that while I was completely understanding of your position in wanting to issue a written statement a little earlier today so that schools would know that this is the way that you are proceeding, I'm deeply disappointed that The Sunday Times seems to have had hold of this story at least 48 hours before presenting it on the floor of this Chamber. Rumour has it that it was the result of an interview two weeks ago, but perhaps you can clarify that, Minister, because obviously—[Interruption.] Well, as a long-time Member of the opposition, I would have hoped that you would have realised how important it is to make statements of this nature on the floor of the Chamber.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that you said it's an exceptional year. I wouldn't want to run away from the decision today as a precedent, when this is clearly a response to a particular set of challenges. Coronavirus, of course, is going to be with us for the foreseeable future, but the response to it just can't be a perpetual cycle of closing down year groups or even schools, so perhaps I think my first question would be whether you're making the argument for priority for the new vaccine to be offered to children and teachers. Now, obviously I understand it's early days as far as the progress of the vaccination is going, but perhaps you could give us a little bit of an insight into your thoughts on that to make sure that this kind of disruption is limited in the future, because I think what these reviews have revealed is that home learning and blended learning are really no equivalent of learning in a school.

The inconsistency of the experience of young people, and, to be fair, our teachers as well, that time out of school—it's been effectively pin-pointed in your decision today as a prime reason for dropping exams as we know them, and rather than the uncertainty about what the summer will look like, it's what we've already experienced that seems to be a driving force in this. So, I'm glad that you've gone with the Qualifications Wales proposal on the alternative to exams insofar as there's an external element to this, which I think—. Setting these assessments externally and marking them externally gives them a level of comparability, I think, with the traditional exams that we're more familiar with. So, in choosing this way forward, what consideration did you give to the content of these assessments having an identifiable similarity with what's gone before and therefore supporting the argument that I've just made that there's a level of comparability between years?

And while this was about fairness, equity and well-being for learners, as you highlighted in the statement today, how much consideration did you give to the well-being of teachers too? Because personally I think teachers have got plenty on their plate at the moment dealing with the catch-up, dealing with preparations for the curriculum, and the last thing I think they needed now was to be taking up time as major players in the design of a moderation system. So, how influential was Qualifications Wales's observation that getting a robust moderation system up and running, given this time, was pretty much impossible? But had there been time to introduce a system of moderation for centrally assessed grades, would that have been your preferred option? I'd also appreciate your early thoughts on how you think teachers might manage assessments within the classroom if a school, at a crucial time, has to either be suspended totally, or that year group has to be sent home. I can't really see this working online, so what's the alternative for that, if you've got a school year that can't sit a teacher-managed classroom-based assessment?

I think I just need to ask you something about the A-levels. I understand the reason you've given for why A-level students won't be sitting an exam of any kind, and I also hear what you said about the universities saying that they're used to this sort of thing, but what advice would you give your successor about making sure that universities stick to their word on this? Are there any thoughts about how their decisions—it's going to be next summer, isn't it—are likely to be monitored to make sure that they're sticking to their word?

And then finally on vocational qualifications, I'm really glad you mentioned these. I know this is a far more complicated picture because it's a UK picture, pretty much. I wonder if you could tell me what the response to the UK guidance issued about a month ago has been like, and also, to square this circle, the position of students studying for vocational qualifications primarily in colleges—their position will have been exactly the same as those studying for general qualifications in terms of disruption, and yet the presumption is they will be sitting exams in the summer. So, why are exams for these students fair when they're not fair for A-level students? Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I thank Suzy Davies for those questions? Can I begin by saying that absolutely no disrespect was meant to Members of this Chamber with regard to an interview I gave The Sunday Times? The Member is quite right, that interview took place two weeks ago. I'm not clear why The Sunday Times decided to sit on the interview, and it was given to that paper in response to the publication of both sets of advice given to me, and what we gave the paper was a description, because they didn't understand the difference between the two sets of advice. That publication was beyond my control, but I assure you no disrespect was meant to Members of this Chamber, and as you will have read, if you read The Sunday Times story, there was a great deal of speculation, some of it quite obvious, given the similarity between both sets of advice in regard to—[Inaudible.]—and the story was wrong with regard to the decision I've made about A-levels. So, I just want to reassure the Chamber that no disrespect was meant by that, and it's a lesson for me.

The Member talked about the vaccine, and I understand why, because this has been an incredibly grim year for all of us and therefore even this chink of light at the prospect of the vaccine coming forward is something that we all want to grab a hold of in the circumstances we find ourselves in. Deputy Presiding Officer, I guess we're all grateful for those incredible minds across the world that are working so hard to try and develop that vaccine, but I just think we have to have a little bit of caution. There is still a long way to go, and the sheer scale of the challenges of distribution, even if we get to the point where a vaccine can be distributed, is really, really challenging, and the First Minister outlined some of those earlier.

With regard to the roll-out of that vaccine, then, clearly, we will be guided by the committee that provides advice to Governments across the UK as to the appropriate use of the vaccine, and it's simply too early to tell at this stage, but, clearly, vulnerable members of society, whether they be working in education or outside of education I'm sure will be a priority. What we're also looking at are alternative testing regimes to support education and help minimise the disruption and that's much more in the forefront of our minds, because that's a much more likely situation that we can implement sooner in Wales rather than the vaccine.

Suzy Davies says that the decision today demonstrates the challenges of blended learning, and how we have supported learners who find themselves outside of school. I think she is right to point out the fact that that situation is variable, and we continue to work with the education sector to iron out that variability. Only last week, during the firebreak, I'm aware of some schools that delivered the entirety of their timetable via live lessons; other schools weren't able to do that. But I'm sure the Member would admit—and if she listened to the headteacher that was on Radio Wales this morning—even when that blended learning is of the best quality, it is no substitute for being in school. And the problem that I face, and the problem that our teachers and our students face, is that we cannot guarantee how much time they will spend in front of their teachers. We have already seen huge amounts of variability. Some children, as I said, are very, very fortunate, have not been affected and they've been able to be in school all of the time. Other children—students I spoke to—have already endured four weeks of having to isolate because they've been in a bubble that has seen a positive case. So, it's not—. I agree we need to do better on blended learning, but that's not necessarily the reason for this driver today.

With regard to the nature of the assessments, it is really important that there is a variety of ways in which children are assessed. With regard to the nature and number of the assessments, that detail will be for the design and delivery group, as in response to the recommendation by Louise Casella's report, learning the lessons from last year of not doing something to the system, but actually working with the system to create a robust and equal and as fair a system as possible that is indeed mindful of teacher workload. There is a balance to be struck about empowering teachers in this process and, believe me, they want to be empowered, and there are lots of them that want to take on this role, but also to be mindful of the incredible pressure that they're already under simply keeping the doors open, and there's that balance to be struck between what other members of the education sector can do in Wales to support them in this work. 

The Member also talked about what happens if a group is out. Well, the externally set assessments will be made available to schools, but it will be for schools to decide, when they can, when those assessments should be undertaken, so there's a degree of flexibility there that should account for some of the public health challenges that we may face. With regard to universities, the universities were very clear with me what their priorities were. Firstly, that is learning, teaching and learning, and ensuring that students have the key knowledge and concepts to allow them to be successful when they get to university. And so therefore maximising the time for teaching and learning was very important for them; this system allows us to do that. The other important element was that there was an equality assurance, and that our regulator was happy to sign off on these proposals, and that is, again, the system that we have arrived at. 

With regard to vocational qualifications, we simply are not in the same position with vocational qualifications, given the nature that, as I said in my statement, the vast majority of Welsh students take qualifications that are shared with the rest of the UK, and are not actually regulated by our own regulator. Therefore, I am not able to order another country's regulator to act in a certain way. But that's why our regulator will continue to work with the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation to ensure that the appropriate steps are taken, to ensure fairness in the vocational sectors as well, where we do not have control over our regulator's qualifications. 

I do welcome this news. As you know, Plaid Cymru has been making the case for having no end-of-year exams for months now. This announcement will be a relief to young people, their parents and to schools across Wales. It would have been impossible to hold external examinations in a way that would be fair to pupils under current circumstances. The decision does mean that alternative arrangements will be in place, and that no last-minute changes will need to be made, as was the case last summer, and that is to be warmly welcomed. No Government should put its young people under significant pressures unnecessarily, as happened last summer. Never again should we put qualifications before well-being. Never again should we create so much anxiety to thousands of young people in Wales.

Therefore, I do welcome the news, but I do also have some concerns and a huge number of questions on the alternative arrangements to be put in place. You have just announced information about vocational qualifications, and that there will be end-of-year examinations for that cohort of students. And once again, those students and those young people are being let down, because they are being affected in exactly the same way as other pupils in Wales, and I would urge you to keep this under detailed review and keep a very close eye on the situation.

May I turn now to the new assessment arrangements—the externally set tests for GCSE, AS and A-level? Why did you decide that there needed to be external assessments, namely assessments set and marked externally? I've had a constituent contact me this afternoon, asking: what is the difference between assessments in exam conditions that are planned by an examination board, as compared to taking examinations under the old system? This constituent says that the word 'cancel' gives a complete misimpression and these are examinations through the back door, and that that's what these externally set assessments will be, so I'd like your view on that. Why not set those tasks internally and moderate them externally? Wouldn't that be a fairer way forward, bearing in mind that the education of our young people has been affected more in certain areas where cases of COVID are high, and that a digital divide also creates inequality, which are exactly the same arguments for cancelling the examinations? Aren't they also pertinent to external tests too?

People will want to know how many tests there will be and what the value of those will be in terms of their contribution to qualifications, and there will also be questions on assignments, where pupils receive a question beforehand and an examination at the end of the day. Is that what will happen with assignments? Will these happen in every subject, and will they apply to the whole curriculum? I know that there are a number of questions, and I know that you noted that a group had been established to look at the detail in terms of the alternative assessment arrangements. But there is a great deal of work to be done and detailed and technical discussions to be had. It is important that the right decisions are made in terms of how much of this happens internally within schools and what role the WJEC or others may have. I would like to know this afternoon what the exact timetable is for this advisory group. 

We are expecting decisions by the end of the year. Hopefully, there will be no delays. We must allow schools to put appropriate arrangements in place so that pupils can understand how they will be assessed, because, whilst there is ongoing uncertainty, teachers and pupils will continue to be concerned. There are many details to be discussed and agreed, and I will continue to contribute constructively to those discussions, and I will always insist that it's the well-being of children and young people that should be the focus of all decisions taken by this Government.

Thanks, Siân Gwenllian, for those questions. She began by saying that she believed that exams should have been scrapped at an earlier point. Well, the policy of Plaid Cymru is to get rid of exams, and that's a perfectly legitimate policy to have. It's not a policy I share; I believe exams are an important part of our education system. If I thought it was possible to run exams in a fair and equitable way, that's what I would've done this year. It's not an easy decision that we've made today to scrap them.

So, I don't share her overall view with regard to exams, but it is clear to me that, in the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and with the ongoing uncertainty about what the public health situation may be as we move over the winter, exams in these circumstances cannot be delivered fairly or equitably, and I have made that decision as soon as I can. I daresay some people will criticise me and say that I should hang on and wait to see how the winter has been, but, if I had done that, that would have led to further—not confusion, but further anxiety as students and teachers tried to ride both horses, one horse thinking that the exam would happen and therefore cramming through content and getting ready for an exam, and another horse of continuous assessment and testing, not knowing from one lesson to another which piece of work would be the piece of work that would be looked at by, potentially, an external examiner. That is what is putting stress on our children and our teachers, and we've made a decision today to give absolute clarity, so that all of our time and attention can now turn to really positive teaching and learning experiences.

With regard to vocational qualifications, I understand that the situation is difficult and different for those students, but, as I explained to Suzy Davies, I simply am not in a position to issue instructions to a different regulator, and therefore—. But I can give the assurance that we will be keeping, as with Qualifications Wales, in close touch with Ofqual to ensure that those students are not disadvantaged. 

With regard to what the Member described as 'tests', these are not tests and I think we do have to be really, really careful with our terminology here. These are assessments that will be provided to schools by the WJEC. And why is that? Well, there are two very important reasons. We've just heard from Suzy Davies about workload for teachers. Actually, having an outside body bringing that extra capacity and resource into the system means that they don't have to design these assessments. Somebody else will do that work for them. And that is one way in which we can take the burden off the teaching profession. The second is because then there is a national consistency that allows us to do moderation, because each child will have been asked to complete a similar task within that classroom setting.

So, when it comes to moderation and ensuring that an A in Llandudno is exactly the same as an A score in Cardiff, then that can be done on the basis of exactly the same task that has been undertaken within the classroom, therefore ensuring that there is that national consistency. And secondly also ensuring that—. I'm sure the Member has read in great detail the analysis of qualifications work with regard to the equality impacts of CAGs, which is where we ended up last summer. They raised some very, very serious issues about equality issues, and therefore having some uniformity in this system ensures that those people that have concerns about unconscious bias et cetera—those concerns can be addressed. Also, it allows us to provide a route into the examination system for our independent candidates.

Earlier on, Suzy Davies asked me for a statement—oh, sorry, it was Mike Hedges that asked for a statement—on home-schooled children. Now, last year we found it very, very difficult to be able to respond to independent candidates. Having nationally agreed, designed by our examination board tasks for children to sit gives us a route in for some of those independent candidates to be able to access a grade this year in a way that they can't do if they're not part of a formal assessment centre. So, this gives us an opportunity to address those students' needs as well, and we're trying to be fair to every learner that we have in our system at the moment.

With regard to the number and the nature, then that will be a matter for the group. We could see—. Potentially, they could advise me that maybe the number of tasks will be different depending on the nature of the course of study. When talking to universities, for instance, they were very concerned with regard to maths and students that were wanting to go on to do a maths-related degree—ensuring that they had all the basic underpinnings to allow them to be successful in the next stage of their careers. Therefore, the group may recommend slightly different approaches, depending on subjects, but that is a matter for them, and it's very important to recognise that those matters will be addressed by headteachers and lecturers and college leaders who are on the front line and know how best we can do that fairly. I expect that work, as I said in my statement, to be completed by December, so we can begin the roll-out of this programme of work in January.

Can I thank the Minister for her statement this afternoon? I very much welcome the ability to actually have clarity now, for our young people and for teachers to know where they will be going and heading towards at the end of this year. I also have—. With experience of having taught in comprehensives, further education and universities, I know there's a great deal of experience out there of the profession being able to do assessments like this, have external moderation, and ensure that consistency and fairness apply across the piste for all subjects. So, I think that's very, very positive for us.

I want to ask a couple of questions in relation to, perhaps, the AS-level—we've talked about A-levels and we've talked about GCSEs, but what about the year 10s and the year 12s? How will this impact upon their studies for the following year in 2022, so that they also know and teachers know what their targets will be for that examination? Because that's critical for those groups of students. It is true that disruption is going to happen. I have full confidence in the blended learning approach, but we also need to look at those assessments, particularly in vocational work, where there are centre-based assessments based upon practical assessments, where they have to be on site. How have you sorted out that arrangement to ensure that, if there's disruption, those students who need to be on site for practical work will be able to do so and those tests or assessments will be taking place?

Can you also tell me, clearly, in relation to the training of teachers to ensure that they're fully aware and have an understanding of what their role will be in this? Because what I'm assuming is that, when you talk about an externally-set assessment and external marking, what will come is actually teachers may well be doing the marking based upon externally-set marking schemes, and that will be moderated by sampling. Because, otherwise, there is a huge amount of work that would be required by the external examiners or external moderators to examine all and moderate all during that time. So, there is a difference there. Can you just make sure that there's clarity that they will be assessed by the teachers initially, based upon an external set of marking schemes, and they will then be sampled and moderated across Wales to ensure consistency there? 

Thank you very much to David Rees for his questions. I think what is really important is that we are looking to design a system that is familiar to teachers. Now is not the time to create newfangled and new ways of doing things, when we all recognise the immense strain that individual teachers, schools and colleges are under at the moment. So, carrying out assessments, tasks of this kind and continuous assessment—these processes are well-known to schools and well understood by schools. So, there shouldn't be a need for a school to acquaint themselves with a completely new, different system—the principles that we're talking about here are well-known and well understood by our teaching workforce.

With regard to practical examinations, David, you are right. For some vocational qualifications, the ability to demonstrate your technical skill, expertise and your ability to undertake that role is a crucial part of gaining your accreditation to enter into a profession. We're very mindful of that, and you will be aware that those learners were prioritised in the late spring and early summer of last year to get them back into college before anybody else to allow them to complete their studies. And we will work with our colleges and our work-based learning providers to ensure that every step is made to allow students to finish and gain a qualification that allows them either to move on to further study or on into the world of work.

With regard to training, clearly, there will be a training need and our expectation is that it's a question of all hands to the pump in this scenario. So, we would be expecting our regional school improvement services, as well as the WJEC, to be able to provide training and advice to schools as to how they should administer any class-based assessments, and, as you said, any marking schemes, not just for the externally assessed assessments, but, actually, the entire moderating process and allocating grades, because that's a really difficult and challenging job to do. Last year, the criticism was—and quite rightly so—that we didn't put in place that opportunity to provide that support for schools. Schools were left pretty much on their own to get on with it. And we need to learn the lessons and ensure that there is an infrastructure around schools this time to support the implementation and operationalisation of this system. Thank you.

Minister, thank you for this statement and clarification today. I think there'll be some people who will criticise you for not waiting longer, there will be others who will say you waited too long. I just think you had to make the decision, and you've looked at the evidence and decided the best way forward, and a judgment call had to be made. At least now we've got certainty and clarity for students and for teachers and for headteachers and senior staff. So, thank you for this today.

Can I ask you, what do the proposals mean as they come forward for those pupils and students who are already educationally disadvantaged, either because of their past experience of education, or home circumstances, and so on? Will the proposals, as they're developed by the group you've set up, enable them to actually not only keep pace but catch up if they have fallen behind? Can I also ask whether there will be flexibility for any cohorts or any individuals that are especially impacted, either now or over the next few months by COVID, which is still with us? Will there be some flexibility around dates and times of teaching and assessment—limited as it must be—in order that they can also complete their course and have good outcomes at the end?

And finally, we're not in this alone, Minister, of course. I'm just wondering what discussions you're having with counterparts in England, in Scotland, Northern Ireland, but also in our European neighbours close by, including in Ireland, so we can share experience, learn lessons, and devise the best way forward together, learning from each other.

Thank you very much to Huw Irranca-Davies. Can I just say, throughout this pandemic, whichever portfolio you find yourself in, there are no easy decisions to be made? Each decision that comes in front of myself, or any other colleagues, often is far from the optimum situation that we would want to find ourselves in. And it's really very, very challenging, as it is very, very challenging to be out there in our schools and colleges at the moment. I don't think we should under-estimate how difficult and challenging it is. I simply cannot predict how the months ahead may go, but if the disruption that we have seen to date is replicated, then, clearly, it is simply not fair.

Your question about how we can help students catch up. You will have seen in the advice to me from Qualifications Wales that it is not the job nor is it possible for a qualifications system to address the fundamental issue that we have here, which is this massive disruption to our education. The qualifications system can't in itself, on its own, make up for those lost lessons. What the qualifications system has to do is reflect the circumstances in which education is being delivered at the moment. And we have other policy initiatives that are designed to address the concerns that you have raised. It is nigh on impossible for the qualifications system to do that, but we need to make it as fair as we possibly can in the circumstances, and I believe that is what we have done today.

It is a 'yes' to your flexibility question around timing. This is about empowering our headteachers, our senior management teams, and our classroom teachers to undertake assessments at a time that is best for them and best for their cohort.

And with regards to discussions within the rest of the United Kingdom, well, we're the last part of the United Kingdom to make a decision on 2021. We've been criticised for that, but it has allowed us to really reflect on what has happened and on the advice of the independent review. I don't criticise education Ministers in other parts of the United Kingdom for taking different approaches; we're all struggling with the same wicked problems, and, as I said, there are no easy answers. They have taken their paths, I have taken the decision that I feel is in the best interests of our own education system. But we keep talking to one another as to how we can learn lessons from one another, and how we can implement the best policy ideas, if they are in the interests of our own children. And we do that both within the United Kingdom and part of our membership of the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory, where we're looking internationally at experiences in other parts of the world, to see what lessons we can learn from them, not just around examinations, but how we run an education system in the middle of a global pandemic.

Can I just take the opportunity to welcome your announcement, and also all the work that you've done as education Minister? Since I was first elected in 2016 I've often sat in awe of the work that you've done, and we're very proud to have you as part of this Chamber.

With regard to this decision, can I just press you a little bit more on what David Rees asked? And perhaps you could say a little bit more about the moderation process and how moderation is going to happen in a way that will engender confidence in the education population. And one other aside to that, is it not possible to introduce a process of peer review at a local level amongst clusters of schools in order to add an extra layer of rigour there? And I understand perhaps it's a bit ambitious for next year, but isn't this a way of perhaps building back better in the future too? 

Can I thank Hefin David for his questions and his kind comments? I think I've got the best job in the world, even in the middle of a global pandemic, so thank you for your kind words. It's always the kindness that kills you, isn't it, Deputy Presiding Officer? But thank you very much for that. 

In terms of moderation, the details of the moderation process is the main job of the design and delivery group. I'm not putting any constraints on that, except the broad principles about them being equitable and fair and building confidence. And we will look to have a verification of moderation processes, whether that be at a school based level or whether that be at a cluster based level, but we want a national verification that the school—the individual centre—has everything that they need in place to give confidence that their moderation processes are fair and robust. I'm mindful of workload, as always, in all of this, and, of course, the more we take teachers out into time to do these kinds of issues we're taking them away from being in front of their children and their students. But, clearly, that will be a consideration for the design and delivery group, but it's certainly something that should be considered carefully. 

Thank you very much, Minister, for grasping the nettle, because I think it's really important for the well-being, not just of learners, but also of teachers to have some certainty about how we're going to move forward on this important matter, because otherwise the poor old teachers are absolutely agonising over how they're going to get their students through this when they may have to quarantine a particular cohort of students for a couple of weeks, or even for a second period. So, I think this is a really helpful announcement.

Equity is an aspiration but, frankly, in this situation, it's really difficult to see how we're going to achieve equity, because it depends on the rigour with which senior management teams are running their schools to ensure that we are containing any outbreak that a student or a teacher brings in from the community to the minimum amount of teachers, and it also depends on our personal circumstances. We're not teachers. We might be able to make a good fist at A-level politics, but unless our name's Dai Lloyd, we're not going to be able to teach our students biology. I'd be absolutely lost. So, I think we have to understand that if pupils aren't in school they're probably not going to be learning to the standard that they would be if they were in school.

So, for a start, we have to make it perfectly acceptable for a student to want to redo a year, because if they've missed huge quantities of learning and haven't been able to get the A-levels that they want in order to go on to the next level say, for example, university, they need to be able to have a second chance at being able to demonstrate that they have that level of competency. But, equally, we can't just be passporting students through just because we want to be kind to them if they don't actually have the grounding required to follow higher education, and universities are quite right to emphasise that point.

So, I strongly support this idea of a stakeholder group of a design and delivery advisory group who are going to help you decide on the rigour with which we are going to ensure that standards in Caernarfon, Caersws and Cardiff are going to be the same to ensure that people get particular qualifications. But, as you say, the rigour of this process is going to enable universities, with confidence, to be certain they can offer places to people, because they are very used to accepting different qualifications, because university education is one of our most successful exports and they're obviously assessing people who have—

Can you wind up, please?

—a whole range of qualifications. So, I'd be grateful if you could tell us how you think universities are going to grasp this with enthusiasm, not just in Wales but in England.

Thank you very much. Can I just say this is absolutely not a question of us being kind or being soft on students in this cohort? It is a question of being fair to them. Their education has been affected in a way that none of us could have imagined in February of last year, so this is not a question of being soft or kind; this is about creating a rigorous system that allows them to be awarded a grade and allows them to progress. And teachers know, teachers absolutely know that they're not doing their students any favours at all if they over-represent that student's ability within a subject. That only leads to failure potentially later on and a great deal of distress, and I know that our professionals working with our children and young people do not want that to happen. They will give a fair assessment, and they will be helped to give a fair assessment by that national approach to having tasks that they will be able to refer to as part of this system.

And with regard to universities, can I just say, as I said, they are very clear that they want some external validation? They're also very clear to me that they expect our qualifications regulator to sign these qualifications off as being robust. But they also have something else that they can bank on when they're considering Welsh students: our pass rate, at the very highest levels of A-levels prior to the pandemic, was growing every year. In 2019, we had the highest percentage of A* and A students at A-levels. That was the quality of our post-16 education in Wales before the pandemic. I understand that cohorts change from year to year, but that quality is still there. It's still there in our system, it's being delivered day in, day out, whether that's in in-person teaching in a classroom or teachers working from home, or students learning from home. That quality is still there and they can be assured of the quality of a candidate coming from Wales, that they will have been awarded a fair grade for their work and they can look to offer them a place at the university with utter, utter confidence.

And finally, Mark Reckless.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Minister, you can assert that quality, but whether universities accept that or make their own potentially different judgment, and, similarly, for employers, will be their decision. You said that what you've done is ensure national consistency, so an A in Llandudno will mean the same as an A in Cardiff, but it won't mean that an A in Llandudno means the same as an A in Liverpool or an A in London. And no wonder Plaid Cymru support this policy: you have put yet another divide between Wales and England. The results that Welsh students get, because of the very different means of assessment to how children in England are going to be judged this year, is going to be a challenge, whether it's with universities or whether it's persuading employers that their teachers' view of them is equivalent to an external competitive examination that many of the people they are competing with will have achieved in England, with the decisions of the UK Government. So, that decision to make us different, despite knowing the decisions that have been made elsewhere, will surely make it more difficult for those here affected to compete, whether in a university or in the employment market. Didn't Tony Blair's Minister for schools Andrew Adonis hit it on the head when he said earlier today, in response to the leak of your announcement and statement,

'I strongly support the sitting of GCSEs and A-levels by students in England next year & would not wish the government to copy the socially regressive policy of Wales in suspending them'?

Mr Reckless, you talk down Welsh teachers, Welsh students and the Welsh education system as much as you want; I disagree, sir. I have every confidence in our young people, our children, our lecturers, our teachers, our exam board and our independent regulator to ensure that students that leave our education system this year will have qualifications that are equally regarded as anywhere else, not just in this United Kingdom, about which you spend a lot of your time talking, but, indeed, the world.

I don't know the last time you spoke to an admissions tutor, but the university system deals with qualifications of students from across the globe. They are assessed in lots and lots and lots of different ways, they accept those students into their universities, and there is nothing different this year. Indeed, it is slightly a myth to think that the A-levels across the United Kingdom and the Scottish highers mirror and ape them; they don't. There are already differences in our systems.

I've taken this decision now in the best interests of our children and the best interests of our education system. I really hope for students in other parts of the United Kingdom that they will be able to proceed in the way in which their Governments have outlined to date, but I am not willing to take that risk with our students of making a late change of mind. I'm delivering clarity now to those young people, and I am delivering the time so that they can have positive teaching and learning experiences and we can design a different type of system of assessment this year that is robust.

Thank you very much, Minister.