The next item is a statement by the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language on a second chance nation, and I call on the Minister, Jeremy Miles to make the statement. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm pleased to make a statement on our plans to make Wales a second chance nation, where it's never too late to learn, and that includes progress on reforming and renewing adult learning, the implementation of a new legal duty to fund the area, and the development of our pilot citizens curriculum programme. 

I have said before in this Chamber that I want Wales to be a nation of second chances in education, a place where everyone can reach their potential, a nation where it is never too late to learn, where people have the confidence, motivation and means to re-enter education to gain the skills they need to work and thrive in our society. Expanding lifelong learning opportunities is essential for Wales to thrive in the coming decades. As people’s careers extend and diversify, more people will seek to retrain and learn new skills to find secure and stable employment. And as we transition to a net-zero economy, businesses will need to innovate with new technologies to enable decarbonisation. And being a nation of lifelong learners is critical for meeting our wider social and civic goals, including improved well-being and mental health, greater use of the Welsh language, and an active, engaged democracy.

Creating a second chance nation will require us to overcome barriers and to reverse some recent trends. Adult participation in learning has fallen across the UK over the previous decade. Research shows that those who are most likely to benefit from re-engaging in education as adults, particularly those who are most disadvantaged and least well qualified, are also the least likely to do so. But, Dirprwy Lywydd, through innovative policy making we have already made some progress towards overcoming these challenges.

Our revised adult community learning funding formula has redistributed adult education funding more fairly across Wales and, over the last two years, we've allocated just over £11.5 million for adult community learning. A further £4 million has been allocated to local authority adult learning, and also to further education colleges to re-engage the hardest-to-reach learners in our society. Our personal learning account programmes give workers the opportunity to gain the skills, knowledge and qualifications they need to make progress in their career.

Over 27,000 people have benefited from these new courses since their introduction in 2017, and we've invested over £55 million to build provision. Over the next three years, we are allocating a further £52 million in the programme to help employed people upskill and reskill into priority areas. Last year, I provided almost £6 million to improve digital capacity and to address the challenges of net zero in adult learning providers and colleges. And thanks to our progressive and unique higher education student finance reforms, we’ve seen adult part-time higher education participation rise, and in particular a significant increase in students—including many from disadvantaged backgrounds—studying with the Open University.

Building upon these successes, we are now entering the most significant reforms of tertiary education since devolution, and renewing our commitment to lifelong learning is at the heart of these reforms. That's why the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022, which received unanimous support at Stage 4 from this Senedd, begins with a strategic duty for the new commission for tertiary education and research to promote lifelong learning. Furthermore, the Act creates a new duty on the commission to secure proper facilities for further education and training for adults, with full details to be set out in secondary legislation, which we'll be bringing forward for consultation in 2023.

As we move towards establishing the new commission, we’ve been working closely with an adult learning external reference group that I have asked to co-design a programme of national co-ordination to reinvigorate the delivery of adult education in Wales, and I’ve allocated £2 million across the current and next financial year to support this work.

Building on our reforms to the school curriculum, we are implementing a citizens’ curriculum for adult learners in Wales. This will support adults through education to access public services, to be engaged citizens and to enjoy improved health and employment outcomes.

I am pleased to be working in partnership with the Learning and Work Institute, Adult Learning Wales, the Welsh Centre for International Affairs, Cardiff and Vale College, Oasis Cardiff and the Open University, who will be delivering five new citizens’ curriculum pilots, which will help tackle the barriers that prevent wider adult learner participation. 

These pilots, which will commence this month, will focus on different elements of adult learning: on health and wellbeing, on global learning, on language education, on how schools and housing associations can support community learning, and how we develop greater community cohesion and citizenship. In addition, we are commissioning a 'state of the nation' survey of adult literacy and numeracy, to understand where lack of these core skills is a barrier to work and wellbeing. We are also developing a professional learning framework for staff across all parts of the post-16 sector, and our professional learning fund forms part of our wider commitment to the professional development of the workforce across the post-16 sector, and we are working to improve the availability of digital routes into adult learning.

Having supported expanded access to the Open University’s OpenLearn platform, I want to further explore the potential for digital to widen access to adult learning, especially for those who face obstacles to participation and those looking to take those vital first steps back into learning. My officials are commissioning a mapping exercise as a first step towards developing much clearer, much more co-ordinated information for current and potential learners to access online courses.

Dirprwy Lywydd, taken together, I believe this demonstrates clearly our commitment to making Wales a second chance nation. Fully realising this vision will take time, and we will continue to face challenges, particularly in the current fiscal context. But I am confident that we are on the path to making Wales a nation of second chances, where it is never too late to learn. Diolch yn fawr.

Afternoon, Minister, and thank you for your statement. I welcome focus and investment in this area and anything that will reverse the downward trends that we've seen in adult participation in learning. I welcome the specific areas you've chosen to focus on: the importance of strategy and strategic duty, shared responsibility, the need for sustainability and the idea of second chances.

While I am pleased to see this announcement of the new pilots, focusing on the different elements of adult learning, I do still have some questions. Adult learners face several challenges unique to their situation that must be addressed by any effort to bolster access to these opportunities. For instance, as you've outlined, adult learners often have to balance work, family and social commitments around any attempts to engage in new learning. Canadian research has found that over 70 per cent of employers offer financial support for job-related education, yet only 22 per cent of employees use it. Minister, how will you ensure that this extra support is signposted properly, promoted properly and reaches the adult learners who need it most?

Financial barriers are a core consideration, as those without access to funding for courses can struggle to find the funds for them, particularly amidst, obviously, the current financial challenges. A report by MillionPlus university group in the UK highlights the cost barrier. For example, when university tuition fees were increased in 2012, the number of mature students dropped by 20 per cent for most courses, and as much as 49 per cent for courses such as for nurses. How do you intend, Minister, to ensure that financial barriers aren't the biggest obstacle to our adult learners?

Mindset is another important area, as many adult learners suffer from self-doubt. This and other factors are why there are several key demands of any providers of adult learning, which include flexibility in delivery so that learners can fit sessions into their busy schedules; value for money, ensuring that affordable courses are not of low quality; a supportive community, ensuring a strong network to address any personal doubts or difficulties, ideally through the use of personal tutors or mentors. To help combat this, I believe we should encourage a range of teaching formats, including making sure remote learning is fully accessible, where possible, to those that wish to use it. I do, therefore, welcome this statement committing to looking at improving the availability of digital access and routes into education. Just how, Minister, in practice do you intend to make it as accessible and flexible as possible?

Minister, we all agree that Wales must be a place that offers the best possible support in the most flexible manner so that we can ensure that those that wish to engage in adult learning are equipped to do so and thrive in that environment. I look forward to monitoring the success of the coming pilots. Thank you.

I thank the Member for her questions and the constructive way in which she has engaged with the statement, and I think it's an indication of the support across the Chamber for initiatives in relation to making sure that adults can return to education at any point in life. She identifies some important potential barriers to people making the decision to do that. I think, in a way, the most profound barrier is that most people don't think of themselves as adult learners and aren't aware of the opportunity, the implications and the support available in order to do that. It's important for people to have the opportunity to reskill and acquire new skills, but I think it's also important for people to have the opportunity to return to education, as it were, in its own terms, for its own purposes, not solely related to the employment opportunities that sometimes it can bring.

She asked finally about the investment in digital, and I mentioned some of the specific investment that we've made very recently in relation to that. But that poses a question of accessibility as well, doesn't it? Not everybody is going to be reached by enhancing the digital offer, and that's absolutely understood, though it is an important way of mapping, clarifying and making accessible and navigable the existing provision that is there, which is very significant. What we've discovered, and it's been clear for some time, is that there is a need for greater co-ordination, so that there is a better consistency of approach across Wales, maximising the opportunity for learners to be able to know what's there and to become involved easily.

But, in addition to that, some of it, as she was saying in her question, is about the confidence to return to learning. Not everybody is ready to re-engage at the level of starting a qualification, or doing a degree, for example. There are many who are probably a little earlier on the re-engagement journey. So, some of the investment we've put in most recently over the last year, two years, has been to support the expansion of what we are calling 'hook and taster' courses, which are those early points of re-engagement with, perhaps, the skills of learning, to be in a setting where you can start to recall the skills of being a learner. So, I think there's a need to adopt a number of different approaches, which I hope my statement was outlining earlier.

On the question of financial support, which is very important—again, a number of the investments that I referred to in my statement directly support access to skills training; personal learning accounts are a very good example of that. And I would just say that I'm really proud of the fact that the expansion of part-time higher education has been so significant and successful in Wales, and that has been directly as a consequence, I think, of that we have not just the most progressive student finance support of any part of the UK in Wales, but that it also treats part-time students in the same way as it does full-time students, and I think that's been behind quite a significant increase in the numbers of students.

Thank you for your statement, Minister. Plaid Cymru is proud of the emphasis on promoting, expanding and developing lifelong education in our co-operation agreement with the Government and our collaboration on the establishment of a tertiary education and research commission. It's vital to ensure now that the commission's focus is on ensuring that Wales is more successful in its aim of becoming a second chance nation, following years of underinvestment and, indeed, cuts in the sector, and this is more important than ever before, as you've noted, bearing in mind the economic challenges that could dilute this ambition.

Alongside fellow members of the Children, Young People, and Education committee, I visited Trinity Saint David's University's Swansea campus last week. As you will know, the age profile of students at that university is older than the sector average in Wales and the United Kingdom, and that, according to the university itself, is due to the emphasis on continuing professional development, upskilling and lifelong learning. I met students who spoke about the economic pressures they're under because they are older—economic pressures that have led to mental health issues, and stress too—which have impacted on their ability complete their programmes successfully. As we heard, half of Open University students in Wales live in our most deprived communities, and we know that the economic pressures on these communities have already reached crisis point and are likely to intensify further.

So, although the new direction in terms of expanding education for adults has been welcomed, concerns have been expressed regarding the major decline over the past few years in the number of adults studying within the further education sector, and the decline too in the number of people studying part-time in the community, at the same time as funding for education for adults in the community has been significantly reduced and is still at a lower level than it was. So, how will you prioritise the provision of clear and accessible routes to higher learning and, bearing in mind these economic pressures, what practical support will be available to enable people to take up opportunities to reskill and reconnect with education at all levels?

A group of learners from Neath Port Talbot adult learning in the community visited the Senedd this morning, and they asked me for better support for learners in the community to help them continue with their studies. They welcomed what has happened in terms of the personal learning accounts, but they spoke about the need to improve public transport—the infrastructure to help them to get to their courses—help with transport costs, help with exam fees—they had to find those fees from their own pockets. And digital provision was also a cause of concern, with the equipment available to be borrowed varying in quality and limited in numbers. So, how, therefore, is the Government going to continue to seek to dismantle the economic barriers facing these older students to ensure that investment is as effective as possible and to achieve the aim of a second chance nation? How will you support people to take up educational opportunities at a time when such an education is vital to promote resilience in our communities, and to promote the health of our economy and the welfare of our citizens?

You talked in your statement about these funding challenges. The provision of adult education and part-time further education, and education in the community, are often among the first things to be cut when budgets are tight. We saw this under Labour in Wales when the austerity policies in Westminster under the coalition Government were impacting Wales over the past decade. So, Minister, in terms of this commitment to ensure this second chance education, how are you going to sustain that if there were to be further austerity? This demands ongoing funding for adult learning in the community, so that we can provide points of access to return to learning opportunities, and continuity to vocational provision and employability.

Then, how will success be measured, and what plans do you have to understand the kinds of learners that could benefit from better access to adult learning? How will the Welsh Government ensure that the strongest emphasis on education for adults will be of benefit to those who most need it, namely those who are least likely to have benefited from formal education opportunities, those least likely to have qualifications and who have left education earlier in their lives, and older people too? Thank you.

I thank Sioned Williams for those questions. I think that the statement answered most of them. But, just to recognise that the challenges that she mentions are very real, and that we do need to ensure that we use the budget available to us in the most innovative way possible. That’s why the support provided through the PLA, which she acknowledged in her question, and the support provided in terms of part-time and full-time education, and higher education, is so very important.

In terms of the funding available to FE colleges, the budget allocated last year includes the biggest increase in the budget that there has been for many years, because we are committed to expanding opportunities to people in the post-16 sector. That includes elements of funding in those colleges that are available to meet emergency or critical needs for individuals where the pressures of the cost of living threaten their access to particular courses, and there are particular funds available in colleges that are funded for that very purpose.

One of the questions that she asked, which is very important, was in terms of how we can ensure that we reach those people who most need access to further education. Statistics show, in Wales and across the UK, that that is the biggest challenge, if you like. Those most likely to take up adult education are those who have had the most education along their educational pathway. So, that’s one of the greatest challenges that we face.

I do think that this is part of the more general strategy. The work of the external reference group is helping us to understand how we can reach people, how we can ensure that there is no duplication, and that the way that we communicate with people does ensure that courses are accessible, that we also provide pathways to people so that they can recommence learning in a way that is diverse and reflects their varying levels of confidence, if you like, and to those who are perhaps furthest away from the education system.

I don’t think that there is any single intervention in this area that will meet all requirements. But I hope that the bigger picture that I have described—the broad range of interventions working together—will be able to reach those people who most need support.    

Thank you very much for your statement, Minister, and your commitment, and that of the Welsh Government, to lifelong learning and second chance education. It was good to see you at the adult learning awards back in September, Minister, with the Learning and Work Institute, where I think we heard some very powerful testimony from those who benefited from second chance education and found it absolutely life-transforming, for themselves and, indeed, their children and families. It's very powerful indeed, and my own experience reinforces that, Minister.

Having left school without any qualifications and being out of work for a period of years, and then having a young family, living on a council estate, I was looking at a way forward, and it was second chance education, going to the further education college in Newport—Nash College as we described it then—that led me back into education and on to university, a career in law, and now the privilege of representing people, firstly in the Assembly and now here in the Senedd. So, I very much value those opportunities and I want to see them available to others.

I just think as well, Minister, that we need to understand the workplace in terms of these opportunities. I think the Wales union learning fund is very powerful, and the learning representatives, and that ease of access, where people can access upskilling and education in the workplace, and then develop a passion for it and go on from there, perhaps to their local further education college and beyond, is very, very powerful. I think that's a very important aspect of the provision we need.

Can I just thank John Griffiths for that? He spoke very movingly at the event in the Senedd about his own journey, as he has here today, and I think it absolutely illustrates the power and the importance of lifelong learning to democratise access to education at every point in your life. I think that the story that John Griffiths has just given is the inspiring story of adult education—it's to begin at one point in the journey, and then that can lead you to—. It's a cumulative journey, isn't it, of learning more and more and extending your qualifications or your learning journey at any point in life. And I do think it's really important that we see this holistically. People will re-engage with learning at whatever point and in whatever setting works for them. For some, that's a community setting. For some, it's university. For others, it'll be in the workplace, and we both heard of the work of two unions that were given awards for their incredible work in identifying workers who might not have thought of themselves as having the opportunity to learn and then developing their opportunities to acquire more and more skills. I think the Government's commitment to the Wales union learning fund is really important, and it's important to see workplace skills development as part of the overall offer that we have.

I thank the Minister.