Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:53 pm on 20 January 2021.
Thank you very much. I think there is scope for us to see what more can be done in order to encourage people to dip their toe into learning Welsh, and that's why I appreciate what some schools are doing, which is that they ask teaching assistants to assist. There are projects in some schools where they ask sixth-formers to return for the following year so that they get a taste for teaching. I hope that will encourage more people to take an interest in undertaking teacher training, and to teach through the medium of Welsh.
Now of course, in terms of apprenticeships, at the moment—and we're still at the early stages in this—through the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, what we have done is to focus on a few specific areas. One is childcare and the other is elder care. Therefore, our provision is focused in those areas at the moment.
In terms of Welsh language apprenticeships, one of the problems we had, of course, was that many of the apprenticeships were with the Urdd, and, of course, the Urdd has suffered a great deal during this pandemic and so it's been very difficult for them, particularly in terms of sports apprenticeships. It's been a tragedy to see that, and we are having regular discussions with the Urdd to see what we can do to assist them, because in the past they could use funding that came from their residential centres to help pay for the core funding for apprenticeships. So, we're still in discussion with the Urdd as to whether we could do more in that area, because they do excellent work.