8. Statement by the Minister for Education and Welsh Language: Supporting an Anti-Racist education system

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:19 pm on 7 June 2022.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 5:19, 7 June 2022

I thank Jenny Rathbone for that question. I think it's important to say that the ambitions that we have in our plan are ambitions that relate to every school in Wales. Every school in Wales will live in a different community, and the demographic and ethnic make-up of that community will differ in different parts of Wales. But, we want every child in Wales to be able to benefit from being part of an education system that is anti-racist positively. We want teachers in every school in Wales to feel confident and supported to be able to identify and deal with issues of bullying or harassment in school, but also, much more positively, to be able to teach the full curriculum, reflecting the experiences of all parts of our communities, including black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. So, I do accept that it's a different set of challenges in different parts of Wales, but I think the objective needs to be a common objective, so that everyone, in whichever part of Wales you're in school, has the benefit of the full curriculum.

I think it will be important to make sure, as part of the professional learning that I've been talking about today, that we enable teachers safely to make sure that all school environments are safe in this sense, and that the teaching and the professional learning available to them is sensitive to the context in which they're practising, and that will be different in different parts of Wales as well. I think I just want to restate that principle. It's really important that we have this as a common objective in all schools, in all communities, in all parts of Wales.