4. How is the Welsh Government supporting higher education students wishing to study health and social care in Wales? OQ57716

Our generous student support package and the NHS Wales bursary scheme enables students in these fields, along with our institutional investment in high-cost subjects, including medicine and dentistry. We are committed to establishing the north Wales medical school, which will complement existing high-quality medical education in Wales.   

I'm grateful to the Minister for that answer. The coronavirus pandemic has shown us all just how important and key social workers are, and if we are to encourage people into the social work profession I think we need a parity of bursary with the NHS bursary you mentioned. People who look to go through this training are often older and they're often from a very diverse background. I had the pleasure of meeting a few of those this afternoon, and they really do need this bursary. Minister, you'll be aware of a petition currently going through the Senedd committee's process, and that calls for removing all barriers to entering the profession and it calls for a parity of the bursary and a parity of esteem in that offer. Can you commit to that parity of bursary and, if so, when?

Well, as the Member says, social work students are unable to access the NHS bursary, but they can access the social work bursary through Social Care Wales, and that provides them with funding towards the cost of their living and tuition fees. Obviously, I'm aware of the representations, including those to which the Member refers, that the bursary funding doesn't provide the same level of funding as its NHS counterpart, and we are currently reviewing and assessing our options with respect to the funding of social work training. From 2022-23, all postgraduate social work students in receipt of the bursary will now be able to access the reduced student finance loan, which closes a loophole that has prevented them from receiving that kind of loan prior to now.

Minister, we need to do all we can to encourage more young people to consider studying for a career in health and social care in Wales, particularly in north Wales, as you mentioned before, to prevent this brain drain that we often talk about. No amount of money will solve the crisis facing health and social care. It's not a shortage of funds causing our growing waiting lists; it's a shortage of people. So, what steps are you taking to encourage more people into STEM subjects? And what discussions have you had with Welsh universities regarding steps they can take to make it easier for Welsh students to study in this field?

There is a range of interventions, on which I worked together with my colleague the Minister for Economy, in schools in relation to this, and there is a need to make sure that the STEM subjects are accessible and attractive to all students, actually. There is sometimes gender bias within those subjects. So, I certainly think there is more that we can all do in that regard.

Some of the reforms I was just talking about—reforms to qualifications in the future—are designed specifically to open up greater opportunities for a wider range of GCSEs, many of which are STEM-adjacent subjects, for example in the fields of engineering and manufacturing. I think that will create a different culture and different set of expectations within our schools, and open up greater opportunities for people to study STEM or STEM-relevant subjects.