Item 4 this afternoon is the statement by the Minister for Education and Welsh Language on Taith—delivering Wales's innovative international learning exchange programme. I call on the Minister, Jeremy Miles. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm delighted to be able to provide an update to the Senedd today on the progress of putting in place our innovative international educational exchange programme, Taith.

In March 2021, the Welsh Government announced it would put in place a £65 million replacement for the Erasmus+ programme, and made that commitment part of our programme for government. I am pleased to inform the Chamber today that that promise is rapidly coming to fruition, and the first learners are already starting to feel the benefits.  

We in Wales loved the Erasmus+ programme a great deal. As an outward-looking nation, the values of international co-operation and exchange imbued in Erasmus are in harmony with our approach here in Wales, and the loss of that programme was keenly felt. That is why the Welsh Government's response was decisive and ambitious. It sent a clear message to learners and educators at home, and to partners across the world, that Wales is open, Wales is outward-looking as a nation and Wales embraces the benefits of cultural and educational exchange.

The Taith programme that we have now developed reflects that ambition and those values. It is reciprocal. The programme supports learners and their staff across all kinds of education providers—formal and non-formal. The response from providers across Wales so far has been fantastic, and I will give you the details of the first pathway now.

Before I do, I want to recognise the work of the Taith team, delivering the programme in double-quick time; to have learners benefiting from Taith already is a credit to their tireless commitment. A lot of learners and staff will be benefiting from Taith this year, with over £13 million available to all sectors for this year’s projects.

Pathway 1, which focuses on the mobility of individuals, was launched in February this year and closed in May. Forty-six organisations were successful in their applications, with over 100 education providers involved. Those projects are going to bring opportunities to over 5,000 staff and learners in Wales. They are going to have life-changing learning experiences across the world. Projects have partnered with 75 countries, including 28 in Europe, as we seek to ensure our partnerships there endure despite the loss of Erasmus.

I would like to draw Members' attention in particular to the fantastic response we've had from youth and adult education providers. Organisations in those sectors have really stepped up to the challenge of ensuring that the opportunities to travel and learn are extended to their learners as well. Learning from other cultures can benefit us all, but for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds or from under-represented groups, these experiences can have profound impacts. I'm pleased to say that, so far, by building a programme in partnership with the sectors in Wales, the demand for Taith from youth and adult education has outstripped even the demand for Erasmus, and that is a success we intend to build on in future.

Speaking of the future, I announced on 5 October that Taith’s pathway 2 is now open for applications.

This pathway is designed to provide even more support for projects that have a more strategic focus. For example, the themes for this year’s call are: developments in education; diversity and inclusion; and climate change. Applications close on 1 December, so there is still time to get applications developed and submitted. Two million pounds is available for these projects in the youth, schools, adult education, further education and vocational education sectors.

We are all aware of the challenges that face us in the coming years, domestically and internationally.

I firmly believe that education has a key role to play in our response to those challenges.

With its ambitious approach to international projects with a strategic focus, Taith will facilitate learners and educators taking an active role in working with and learning from international partners on issues that affect us all, such as climate change. To solve global issues, we need a global approach, and Taith will help us to deliver that.

Taith has already had an impact overseas too, and has been carrying the message that Wales is an outward-looking and international nation across the world. Both myself and the First Minister have reflected how frequently Taith is raised in our discussions with international counterparts, and how enthusiastically it has been received.

We have only just started, and already it is opening doors overseas.

I am looking forward to discussing how Taith can help open even more doors in Europe when I visit Brussels to speak to MEPs and others next week. And although Taith carries a brilliant message to our international partners, it is just one part of our ambitious international education offer.

Our international education programme, delivered by British Council Wales, continues to provide distinct projects that provide knowledge and skills for our young people to contribute to a global society. For example, we recently made a long-term commitment to continue Welsh schools' and colleges' opportunities to engage with the Massachusetts Institute for Technology’s unique Global Teaching Labs initiative. This programme enables primary and secondary schools and further education colleges across Wales to draw on STEM expertise from instructors from the world’s top science university through short, high-impact teaching placements and cultural immersion experiences.

And for higher and further education, the third phase of the Global Wales project is now under way. This project will help to grow and diversify the international student population in Wales, and will promote the benefits of collaboration and grow our links with key markets in Europe, India, North America, and Vietnam.

I am sure that Members will share my enthusiasm for the progress that Taith has made and the success it has already enjoyed in its first year. This will encourage education providers in their local areas to get involved with the programme if they are not already. We are developing an international education exchange programme for all learners in all of Wales. Some great work has been done already and there is more to come. I look forward to updating Members on further progress again next year.

Thank you for your statement, Minister. Learning exchange programmes are wonderful opportunities for young people. But putting aside the fact that you've spent millions and millions—£65 million, in fact—reinventing the wheel and creating a scheme that only differs slightly from the UK Government's offer, I do have some practical questions that I'd like to ask.

As you've laid out, each phase has a different focus. Pathway 2 has three themes—developments in education, diversity and inclusion, and climate change. As the funding is on a year-on-year basis, I foresee that this might pose a difficulty for students who are planning to study abroad, but don't know if their subject will then fit into the following year's themes. So, Minister, how will this work for university students picking degrees where they study a year abroad, and will this cause more students to opt out and use the Turing scheme instead, with its stable objectives, and would this result in any financial waste? Also, as you know, the Taith scheme can be applied for alongside the Turing scheme, however, this would require organisations to fill out two different application processes. This, obviously, can be time-consuming and costly. Minister, what mechanisms are you putting in place to ensure that, for applicants applying for both Taith and Turing, the processes are as seamless and efficient as possible? Thank you.

The programme's flexible, it won't be wasteful, and it is significantly superior to Turing.

Thank you for your statement, Minister. One of Taith’s stated aims, as you mentioned, is to improve access to international opportunities and the mobility it offers to all learners and students, including those with disabilities, additional learning needs, under-represented groups, and those from deprived and disadvantaged backgrounds. So, I'd like to ask how all of this is being measured so far. Are these numbers being monitored and measured within the different educational settings, in terms of higher education, further education, schools and youth services? And, if so, what is the ratio in terms of those who have benefited from the Taith opportunities—are those targets being met in that regard?

In creating an international learning exchange for Wales, it's true that a strong message was sent to international partners about our nation that our education institutions and Wales continues to be outward-looking and internationally focused, although Brexit pulled us out of a number of the valuable programmes that helped us to be so, and that we as a nation understand the value of fostering and sustaining international partnerships in the wider education community. There are, however, concerns that higher costs, resulting from the current economic situation, and the current imbalance in the programme, in terms of the 10:3 ratio of internal and external mobility, are going to impact upon institutions’ ability to forge viable and productive partnerships. What consideration is being given to the impact of this? Is this something that is being monitored? And is there a need to increase the internal and external rates to ensure that mobility? And, finally, in terms of those higher education students who come from Wales, is that number being monitored, and what is the ratio there?

Finally, the Taith website contains the following statement:

'Studying, volunteering or taking a work placement abroad broadens people’s horizons, expands their skills, and brings benefits to communities and organisations here in Wales.'

So, can you tell us, Minister, in what way the programme offers opportunities to highly vocational students, who are not studying for a degree or studying at a school or college? Are you content that there is no gap in the provision of opportunities to all kinds of apprentices too? Thank you. 

Well, I thank the Member for those very important questions. On the first point that she made in terms of investment, I think that, when you look at the pressures on families now, the opportunities that can transform and broaden the horizons of young people become even more important now than they were previously. In terms of the emphasis on ensuring that it is inclusive, in the broader sense that the Member mentioned, that's an important element. One of the elements of the second pathway, particularly, is focused on ensuring that the provision is diverse and entirely inclusive. But that theme extends through the fundamental purposes of Taith, and ensures that it's available to all kinds of learners, not just those in higher education, but also in further education and those involved with youth work. So, we will be measuring the reach of the scheme to ensure that it does deliver against that objective. 

In terms of the point that the Member made on the 30 per cent relying on mobility into Wales, that recognises that that element, very often, requires funding from the nation where the learners or staff are moving from, and, therefore, it's not a requirement of all partnerships to ensure that that is an element. And, therefore, that 30 per cent ratio does acknowledge that there are often other sources available in that element of the scheme. 

And, finally, on this item, Alun Davies. 

I'm grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm grateful to the Minister also for his statement this afternoon. I very much welcome this from the Welsh Government, and I'm sure that you'll find a very warm welcome in Brussels as well. This is something that's been brought up with me a number of times, when I've been visiting Brussels over recent months, and there is an overwhelming welcome from the EU institutions that Wales remains fully engaged, and ensures that our young people have the same opportunity to travel and to visit and to study overseas and across our continent, in the way that their parents did, and we can't take that away from people.

But can you also assure me that this opportunity extends to everybody across all the different settings and across different geographies and demographics? I'm particularly interested in what the Minister had to say about further education and about youth services, because I want to ensure that everybody, every young person I represent in Blaenau Gwent, has the same opportunity to participate in these schemes, and the same opportunity to enjoy the international travel and study, and to learn in the same way as we did some years ago. 

I thank Alun Davies for that important set of questions. I share with him the ambition to make sure that all parts of our education system and all communities are able to benefit from this very ambitious scheme. One of the most exciting elements in it, I feel, has been the relationships that have been developed and established between schools and schools in other countries. Dirprwy Lywydd, may I ask if the Members opposite would extend the same courtesy they receive from other Members during this debate? 

Will Members please allow the Minister to finish his contribution? 

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd—[Interruption.] 

Without any other additional comments.

So, schools in Wales have been establishing mobilities to Belgium, to Bangladesh, to Canada and to Colombia and creating that network at a school level, where, previously, the focus would have been at a higher education level principally.

He asked me to confirm the availability to all parts of the education sector. I think there were fewer applications from the further education sector than perhaps I would have liked to have seen in the first call, and so, we've just opened up a second Pathway 1, which is specific to FE and VET sectors, to give them a second opportunity to be able to apply. I'm very much looking forward to seeing positive engagement from colleges in the second call; I'm confident that we will see that. We've had positive discussions both with ColegauCymru and the Taith team to make sure that they're engaging with colleges right across Wales to support them in their applications. I'm sure that all Members will feel that it's really important to make sure that all learners in all sectors have the best possible opportunities.

I thank the Minister.