Cyflwynwyd yr ymateb hwn i'r Pwyllgor Plant, Pobl Ifanc ac Addysg ar Bil y Gymraeg ac Addysg (Cymru)
This response was submitted to the Children, Young People and Education Committee on the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill
WLE
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Ymateb gan: Canolfan Bedwyr, Bangor University
Response from: Canolfan Bedwyr, Bangor University
Reply from: Gruffudd Prys, Head of the Language Technologies Unit, Canolfan Bedwyr, University
We welcome the intention of the Bill to strengthen and increase the use of the Welsh language in education.
As a unit that develops technical and terminological resources for promoting the use of the Welsh language, we feel that the Bill would benefit from giving specific attention to the need to strengthen provision in terms of the Welsh terms and language technologies that are available to the education sector in Wales. That is because developing appropriate terms and technologies will be key to facilitating the use of Welsh within the education sector in Wales, across the entire age continuum.
In light of the additional support for standardising the Welsh language stemming from Cymraeg 2050, we also need to ensure that there is an opportunity to advocate in favour of pedagogic viewpoints, as well as general linguistic viewpoints. We therefore recommend acknowledging representation from respective organisations subject to the Bill that could take on the responsibility of advocating for the specific needs of the education sector in deciding upon the terms that are standardised for educational resources, thereby allowing them to contribute to the work of developing and standardising terms that is currently being conducted in Wales. In general, we should also note that institutions subject to the Bill have a responsibility to promote the terminological resources that are available – for example, Y Termiadur Addysg and the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol’s Dictionary of Terms.
The appropriate use of technology will also be vital in ensuring that the Welsh language can be used easily within the education sector. With the use of artificial intelligence technologies increasing, it is more important than ever to ensure that the necessary Welsh language technologies are developed and made available where they are needed. We believe that there is scope for the Bill to recognise the need to coordinate and establish good practice in terms of the technology used. At present, differences between organisations in terms of the software packages that are chosen make it difficult to develop Welsh language support for them all. We feel that there is scope in the Bill to note that the respective organisations that are subject to the legislation should coordinate and support the development of an appropriate Welsh technology offer, including expanding on the building blocks laid down as a result of the implementation of the Welsh Language Infrastructure policy. In addition, we believe that the bodies need to contribute to the process of ensuring that a long-term funding model exists for those organisations that are maintaining and developing essential software packages, such as language checking tools, so that they can provide the technical and linguistic support needed by the sector.
In sum, therefore, we feel that the Bill should commit the respective parties subject to the legislation to advocating for pedagogic views within the work of standardising terms that is being carried out at a national level, and that these bodies should also be duty-bound to participate in coordinating and supporting the technical developments necessary to facilitate the use of the Welsh language within the education sector in the coming years.