Kirsty Williams seemed choked with the cold when she questioned First Minister Carwyn Jones yesterday but her fighting spirit was undiminished as she took him to task for what she called his government’s aspiration towards mediocrity rather than excellence in the wake of the annual Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission report which said that poorer children in Wales were significantly less likely to obtain 5 GCSE’s including Maths and English. Even at the age of 3, children in Wales were falling behind those in England and Scotland in terms of vocabulary. While children in England caught up with those in Scotland by the age of 5, children in Wales fell further behind.
In his response, Mr Jones had to point to the “Pupil Deprivation Grant” as being part of the solution. He did acknowledge that this was a Liberal Democrat initiative, known as the Pupil Premium in England and fought for by Kirsty Williams and her colleagues in Wales.
You can watch the whole exchange here from around 9:52.
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One Comment
I’ve watched the exchange and the atmosphere in the Welsh assembly seems a lot more serious than the UK parliament. We need more serious debate like this. I don’t mind the odd joke, but the national parliament engages in too much grandstanding.
Kirsty sounds right in pulling Labour up on poverty of ambition. I find myself explaining the importance of education to my nieces and nephews, because I don’t think the country gets it. I tell them: English, maths and science isn’t good enough, it’s easier to get a top job with a foreign language and good grades in everything else too.
Kids don’t need to abandon play, but they don’t seem to understand the importance. People think languages are for holidays and maths is unimportant after 16. All the sciences are very important, but not only them.
Kids need to be told why education is important, not just that it is important. It needs to click in their heads. Lib Dems should get onto this.