Part of 3. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 3:52 pm on 10 February 2021.
I've provided the coleg with over £0.5 million this year for a range of projects, and strategic projects have been extended to all colleges in the priority areas of health and social care and childcare and public services. Because you're absolutely right; we need to make sure that we have the workforce with the linguistic skills to meet the needs of all communities and citizens in Wales. This has enabled the colleges to employ additional teaching staff and put structures in place to support the learners, and embed bilingual provision within the colleges. What's particularly pleasing, Mike, is that colleges themselves have provided match funding to these projects, which demonstrates their commitment to extending bilingual models and courses for learners. This is a joint endeavour, both from the coleg themselves and also the individual institutions. Over 305 staff in 10 colleges followed the Work Welsh/Cymraeg Gwaith course provided by the National Centre for Learning Welsh last year, and the sector's response has been extremely positive again this year by ensuring that more and more of their staff can access such professional learning opportunities. I'd like to pay tribute to the work that the coleg is doing. The post-16 action plan is a long-term plan, and I have full confidence in the coleg in achieving its very stretching and robust goals.