Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:37 pm on 22 March 2022.
First and foremost, whilst acknowledging the need to raise education standards, there is also a clear need for post-COVID education recovery, as was mentioned by our colleague Laura Jones. Massive amounts of education has been lost already, so a certain amount of recovery needs to happen before actually improving standards. I know some investment has been made, but teachers and parents have told me that schools have struggled to be able to spend this money in the time that was available to them—that actually the resources or people weren't available to help them bridge that gap. Therefore, I would like to ask you, Minister, with regard to education recovery spending, how much has been spent so far, how has the money been spent specifically, and how has this helped with attainment? As we know, Wales is also embarking on a major curriculum change, as well as additional learning needs reforms, which will pose the biggest challenge to the schools standards agenda yet in terms of the scale of the ambitions for change. How does the Minister envision that the new curriculum will improve standards, and also, does the Minister believe that the school budgets and workforce are in place to respond to the pressures posed by these reforms, and, specifically, in both languages?