8. What action will the Welsh Government take to ensure the delivery of high standards in education? OQ56951

Our national mission is to raise education standards for all children and young people. We will continue to do this through our wide-ranging reform programme and unprecedented investment, as well as targeted support for specific cohorts and disadvantaged and vulnerable learners.

Thank you, Minister. Following on from Jenny Rathbone's comment about school inspections, I believe school inspections are vital to ensure that the delivery of high standards of education is available across Wales. However, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 show that 189 schools were last inspected between seven and 10 years ago, and a further 417 schools were inspected between five and seven years ago. One school in Wales was inspected over 10 years ago, Minister. These figures show school inspections were lacking long before coronavirus hit, which means hundreds of schools across the country could have been underperforming for years. What action will the Minister now be taking in light of these figures to ensure that schools are properly inspected and that youngsters and young people are getting the education that they deserve? Thank you.

Well, I think I agree with the Member's point about how important it is to make sure schools are inspected regularly in order to provide us with information around school accountability more broadly. As she knows, in future, under the new curriculum, inspection will happen on a much more regular basis. At the moment, as she knows, Estyn has suspended its core inspection programme for this term, recognising the challenges that schools have been grappling with over the last 12 to 18 months. During spring term next year, Estyn is going to be starting to pilot its new inspection regime with schools who participate in that. So, that will provide a different basis, going forward, for that inspection regime. But I absolutely echo the point that she made about how important that is, as part of our accountability process overall.

I thank the Minister.