5. How does the Welsh Government intend to develop digital skills in Ynys Môn? OQ57347

Learning digital skills is a mandatory requirement across the new Curriculum for Wales, and schools in Ynys Môn have access and resources that are bilingual and incomparable, which are provided through the Hwb programme. The Welsh Government is also funding digital literacy programmes that are free for all adult learners on the island and across the country. 

Thank you very much for that response. This lunchtime, I was chairing the latest meeting of the cross-party group on digital issues, and skills was our topic today. There was a very interesting discussion, and we heard examples of excellent work already work already happening, not only in Ynys Môn in the M-SParc science park, but also in Gwynedd—a new council digital strategy there—in Gower College Swansea and the skills partnership in the south west. But it's important that good practice is shared. So, how can the Welsh Government ensure that good practice is effectively shared so that people of all ages in Wales, wherever they live, know that they can access the education that they need in the digital sphere, and also that employers in all parts of Wales are aware that they can have a pipeline of people with the skills that they need?

I thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for that question. I saw that the cross-party group was meeting once again this week, and, of course, I'm familiar as well with the work that's being done in M-SParc on Ynys Môn, and Blue Lobster, one of the companies that is working out of M-SParc, is an example of the point that Rhun ap Iorwerth was making.

If I was to take just one example, Llywydd, of the point that the Member was making about sharing good practice and making sure that good things that are happening in one part of Wales are known about and can be developed elsewhere, then maybe, for this afternoon, I will just point to the degree apprenticeship programme. These are degree level apprenticeships, many of them in the digital skills area. Up until about a year or so ago, we had no degree apprenticeships on the island of Ynys Môn, now we do. That's very good news and it's great to see those young people coming forward to take advantage of those opportunities. I think one of the reasons that that will have happened is because the success of the degree apprenticeship programme in some other parts of Wales, some early movers, has now been communicated across the network of FE colleges—and the Member has an excellent example in Llandrillo of a forward-looking FE college—and that good practice in some parts of Wales is now being spread through that network, and I hope is resulting in those additional opportunities for young people, and not just young people, people of all of ages—

as Rhun ap Iorwerth was saying

—to take advantage of those chances, particularly in skills that will be needed across a whole range of industries in the future.