Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:53 pm on 13 January 2021.

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Photo of Suzy Davies Suzy Davies Conservative 2:53, 13 January 2021

Okay, well, thank you for that. I messed up those initials initially, there, as well. Okay, well, you're 'very keen'; I'll take that as a positive statement, then. 

I'd just like to go back, if I can, to this consistency about the quality and quantity of online teaching. I know we've rehearsed a fair bit of it today, but I wonder if you could tell us what's happened so far to that £29 million that was provided for 600 new teachers and 300 teaching assistants to help with maintaining and catching up on learning, particularly as we've just heard there's another £12 million on its way. We accept that the COVID recovery in education is long term, so I'd be wary about rushing to spend quite a lot of money in one go because it's available if it's not going on staff, but if it isn't going on staff but is still being used to support standards, can you tell us how it's being used? I'd be very interested to know if any of this is going to the consortia, for example, because it's their job to maintain standards, and, indeed, whether there are discussions, which we heard a little bit earlier, about even using it to subsidise the cost of broadband for those families who are struggling with getting enough access to broadband, just to provide things like dongles and Wi-Fi extenders, or simply just buying them extra data.