3. Statement by the Minister for Education: The approach to qualifications in 2021

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:31 pm on 10 November 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 3:31, 10 November 2020

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.