Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:34 pm on 10 November 2021.
Diolch, Llywydd. Afternoon, Minister. It almost seems like old news now, it's been so long since I've had the chance to question you at spokespersons' questions in the Chamber, but it comes of great concern to education providers and myself that the new curriculum will see the separation of GCSE, the separate sciences, and also the separation of English and English—. Sorry, it will see the separate sciences at GCSE merged, and English and English literature also merged. We have always realised in this Chamber the importance of science and the importance of encouraging people into science, as well as, obviously, highlighting the importance of people going into science for our future economy, for future jobs.
So, I was quite baffled when I heard this announcement, and, for me, it flies in the face of one of the four purposes of the new curriculum. The issue of conflating subjects is nothing less than to disregard the best of what's been thought and said over centuries. Biology is not chemistry, and English is not English literature. Minister, England will be keeping separate subjects, appreciating their value and importance. So, Minister, do you not see that this will inevitably now cause a brain drain of students who want to study medicine at Oxbridge, who will, obviously, need triple science GCSEs to maximise their chance of success? Is this really what we want to see happening? It's hard enough to recruit into the education sector without staff feeling that their subject is being dissolved or amalgamated.
I would love to hear your comments, Minister, on what impact you think that this move will have on the children of Wales—a move that's not supported by the majority of the education sector, including the union the Association of School and College Leaders Cymru, who highlighted that only 30 per cent of those involved in the original consultation exercise thought that this was a laudable or workable idea, but somehow it made it into the final report. So, Minister, why is it that the unions, professors at Swansea University and the Royal Society of Chemistry are wrong about the disastrous impact of this decision, and yet you and Qualifications Wales are right?