Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:48 pm on 8 December 2021.
This is a very important question, and, in a variety of ways, the Government is already providing support. One of the priorities that we have is ensuring that Welsh language transmission happens at home. And that is more of a challenge than we'd hoped and expected. So, specific support is available in that context. Also, as you know, in terms of the early years, we have a variety of schemes supporting parents to speak Welsh with their children and, when we have non-Welsh speaking parents, to ensure that they have access and opportunities to be involved and have experience of cylchoedd meithrin and so forth through the medium of Welsh. So, a variety of things are already in the pipeline.
But what we've also seen is access across Wales to online courses from the National Centre for Learning Welsh. Those figures have increased significantly, and the provision has been broadened as well in the wake of that. So, as the question suggests, we have lessons that we can learn for the future in terms of what we've seen over the last year to 18 months, to see how we can expand the provision further.