7. What assessment has the Minister made of the summer 2022 GCSE and A-level results? OQ58512

Reflecting a transition back to established exam standards, results were awarded broadly at the midway point between 2021 and 2019. Our learners demonstrated immense resilience in their performances and, as a testament to this, a record number of young people from Wales will be going to university this year.

Can I thank you for that answer, Minister? I visited all the secondary schools in Swansea East on GCSE results day, and I visited those that had A-level results on A-level results day. They were happy with the results, but, as the Minister knows, there were problems with some of the questions set. He knows this because I've raised it with him on several occasions. What discussions has the Minister had with Qualifications Wales and the WJEC to ensure that problems with examination questions do not happen again this year?

It's a good question, and I have continuing discussions with both Qualifications Wales and WJEC in relation to some of the issues that arose over the course of the summer exam series. He will remember, of course, that both Qualifications Wales and WJEC wrote to centres in advance of results days explaining what had happened, what their reviews had revealed and the steps that they were taking in order to respond to those, which included altering marking schemes and grade boundaries in relation to papers that were affected. There is some element of this that happens in many years, unfortunately. Of course, I accept that this year, given the heightened anxiety of learners, those challenges will have been more keenly felt by young people. I would want to be very clear, though, in reassuring them that these steps put in place were able to reflect the situations that arose and able to compensate for that in the marking schemes, giving fair outcomes to all learners. But, obviously, as in each of these years, which have been pretty unique in how we've responded to COVID, there are things to learn for future years, and I am confident those lessons will have been learned for future years.

Minister, we know that many educationalists have, for years, called for a focus on the science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects. In Swansea this year, maths was the most popular A-level subject and acknowledged as one of the toughest subjects. No fewer than 59.6 per cent achieved A* or A with 85.7 per cent attaining a C grade or above. This is an exceptional result. What can we learn from this success as we seek to inspire young people to pursue the STEM subjects?

Absolutely. We are pleased to see young people taking up STEM subjects and will do everything we can to continue doing that. There has been a challenge in terms of the gender gap of young people taking up STEM subjects, but the work that we have been doing through our partners has helped to address that to some extent. The 'Talented Women for a Successful Wales' report gave us some indications about how best we could try and close the gender gap in STEM, and those actions are actions that the Government is taking forward. But I congratulate everybody who had good results in maths and every other subject this summer. I think it's an incredible testament to their resilience, their creativity, and it's a thing to celebrate.