Tel: 01267 610400

E-mail: gwybodaeth@colegcymraeg.ac.uk

E-mail address: SeneddCulture@Senedd.Wales

16 January 2023

Dear Chair

Ref: Call for further evidence on the implications of Census data for ongoing inquiry into the legislative framework supporting Welsh-medium Education Provision.

I was very glad to have the opportunity to provide oral and written evidence to the Committee regarding this important consultation, and thank you for the opportunity to provide additional evidence following the publication of the Census data on the Welsh language.

As part of Coleg Cymraeg's original evidence to the consultation, the Committee's attention was drawn to the significant challenge of ensuring that we have a sufficient supply of teachers qualified to teach in Welsh and bilingual schools, and also to introduce the Welsh language in schools that mainly teach through the medium of English.

As is known, there currently aren’t enough Welsh speakers that choose to train as teachers; on average around 250 train each year but in order to realise the ambition of the Government’s strategy, Cymraeg 2050: A million Welsh speakers, and in order to realise the contents of the new local authority WESPs, we need closer to 600 Welsh speakers training each year.

It must also be ensured that those who are not fluent Welsh speakers or confident Welsh speakers receive sufficient language skills support to enable them to develop the Welsh language skills of pupils in English-medium schools, or even to teach in the Welsh-medium sector. The Government's school categories guidance indicates that a minimum of 15% of activities in schools where English is the main medium of learning should take place through the medium of Welsh, which is a significant increase, and a workforce with sufficient Welsh skills is needed to realise this.

Naturally, the disappointing results of the 2021 Census have led to a great deal of discussion about the future of education and the Welsh language. And as referred to above, realising the ambition of the Cymraeg 2050 strategy is dependent to a very large extent on developing Welsh speakers, through Welsh and bilingual schools, and in an increasing number of schools where English is the main medium of education. The Census has shown a significant decline in the number of children

aged 3-15 identified as Welsh-speaking in areas where the vast majority of schools are those that teach through the medium of English. This underlines the importance of firm and effective action in relation to initial teacher education.

The Government published the Welsh in Education Workforce Plan in June 2022 and although the plan is not sufficiently ambitious or far-reaching, it represents an important step forward. By implementing the Plan effectively, and building upon it, the Coleg Cymraeg believes that the planning processes of the education workforce may be strenghtened, especially the Welsh education workforce. One obvious way of realising this is through the ongoing work within the Welsh Government to revise the accreditation criteria for initial teacher training courses for the 2023-27 accreditation cycle. Coleg Cymraeg would like to draw the Committee's attention to this important consultation that closes on 19 January 2023.

Initial Teacher Education Partnerships have a crucially important role to play in developing the bilingual workforce of the future for our school system as a whole. It is therefore good to note that the revised criteria reflect this key role in a few places, but there are many other places where the criteria have not been revised. This means that the criteria can be inconsistent; and certainly not always reflective of the Welsh Government's recent policy announcements.

To ensure the change that is needed, Coleg Cymraeg would like to see criteria that set clear, robust and detailed expectations regarding the provision of language skills for all trainees. This would be a way of ensuring that the language skills provision is more consistent, and is provided to the required standard across all providers. Strengthening the status and expectations regarding the Welsh Language Competence Framework is crucial in this regard.

Therefore, in general, the revised accreditation criteria include some progress in terms of the Welsh language, but fundamentally, it appears that the Welsh language (or additional specific requirements) have been inserted in specific places, without considering the document as whole and that the expectations for providers do not go far enough in ensuring the required change. The document could be edited in a more coherent manner in order to ensure that the Government's expectations regarding the Welsh language permeate the entire document.

Furthermore, to amend the content of the criteria, Coleg Cymraeg does not believe that the current monitoring and accountability arrangements are sufficiently robust to provide assurance that the criteria relating to the Welsh language that are committed to are implemented consistently and effectively across the partnerships. Coleg Cymraeg wishes to see a firmer framework developed to ensure that the criteria relating to the Welsh language are implemented.

The existing challenges in terms of ensuring a sufficient supply of teachers that can teach through the medium of Welsh reflect more general patterns and challenges in terms of the training, recruitment and retention of teachers. Coleg Cymraeg acknowledges that the factors that contribute to this are complex and include perceptions about

the status of the profession, as well as teachers' pay and working conditions. Coleg Cymraeg believes that it is absolutely vital that the Government addresses these challenges for the entire profession. However, securing firm accreditation criteria in terms of the Welsh language, which will be in place for at least the next four years, is a practical way of ensuring that initial teacher training in Wales is fit for purpose in the current linguistic context, and we ask the Government to ensure that the final criteria are consistent with its other policy commitments in relation to the Welsh language and education.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Dafydd Trystan

Registrar, Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol