Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:40 pm on 24 January 2023.
I thank Samuel Kurtz for those many questions. I'll do my best to deal with most of them, if I may. I'm not going to reiterate what I said about the importance of looking at the data in its context and looking at the other sources of data as well in terms of analysing where the numbers of speakers are at present. Myself, I'm not looking at this as a setback. We have a choice: either to look at it as a setback or as a driver. On the whole, people have looked at it as an inspiration. Certainly, the figures are disappointing, but the task now is to look to the future and look at what it tells us, and to recommit across the nation.
In terms of the education workforce, the Member knows that I do see this as a very challenging area. In May last year, we published the 'Welsh in education workforce plan'. That plan notes the steps that we will take in partnership with other organisations to increase the number of teachers but also school leaders and assistants in the Welsh-medium sector, and also—this is important in the context of another question asked by the Member—to develop the Welsh language skills of all practitioners. That 10-year period does align with the 10-year cycle for the new WESPs and additional funding will be invested in the next three years to implement the 10-year plan. So, that is a clear sign of our commitment to being creative and ambitious. We will be looking again at the recruitment levels consistently and will be reporting officially to the Senedd every two years, but the data, of course, will be available more often than that.
In terms of learning Welsh in the English-medium sector, the Member knows that we have published a framework on this recently. He talked about categorisation. That's an important way of increasing Welsh-medium provision in the English-medium sector. For the first time, we have, as part of the new curriculum, a requirement that Welsh is in every school. So, that's a big stride to make. I think the opportunity that we have is to unify the Welsh and English systems so that every child who goes through the system, whichever one, has a fair chance of leaving the system with Welsh language skills. That's the challenge. It's not that we look at the two systems separately, but that it is one system that provides those opportunities for every learner. We need to understand the skills of the workforce better than we do at present, particularly the passive skills and also the skills of people who can speak Welsh but lack confidence in terms of its use in the workplace.
The point that the Member makes in terms of initial teacher education is important. I've been discussing this with the partnerships as we look at the cohort that we have of students at present. Looking at the criteria for qualifications is a part of that, as the Member suggests.
Finally, in terms of the trajectory for 2050 generally, we are committed to looking at that again after the census results. We were intending to do that anyway, so we'll be doing that over the next year.