By Dr Thomas Breeze and Dr Gareth Evans
‘Seismic’ is an over-used word in the lexicon of political pollsters, but if recent electoral predictions are to be believed, next month’s Senedd election may well qualify for such a description. After a quarter century of one-party domination, Wales looks set for an unprecedented political revolution that even the most speculative commentators could scarcely have foreseen just a year ago.
So what does all of this mean for education, a public service over which Welsh ministers have almost total control? What might a new left-leaning government do differently? Would a right-of-centre establishment tinker or transform?
It was with these questions in mind that the Emma and Tom Talk Teaching podcast, together with colleagues at Impact Wales, set about interviewing spokespeople from leading political parties. Motivated by a dearth of specialist education journalists in Wales, we spoke to representatives of the Welsh Conservatives, Green Party, Welsh Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the sitting Welsh Labour education secretary about their hopes and plans for education after May 8th. Reform UK declined our invitation, but published their manifesto shortly before our interview series, allowing us to ask – and answer – the same questions posed to those who did.
Here’s a flavour of what we found…
School Standards
Wales’s results in the OECD’s PISA tests, which score national education systems in reading, maths and science, have been a cause of consternation for more than a decade: the country remains rooted to the bottom of the UK rankings, and would be 37th in the world if considered as a country in its own right rather than combined with the other three home nations.
All the parties were clear that they saw this as a problem that needed to be solved, though precise detail on how to do that remained elusive, not least because the teaching profession is widely seen to be exhausted by a decade of continuous reform. One might have expected Labour’s Lynne Neagle, the sitting Cabinet Secretary for Education, to reel off a laundry list of achievements to woo voters, but instead presented herself as a problem-solver working in difficult times. Her roll-call of resolutions to address long-standing issues in the system only reinforced the fact that her difficult inheritance since stepping into the role in 2024 has been from her own party. Plaid Cymru’s Cefin Campbell appeared to have done his homework by name-checking as a nation to watch the Republic of Ireland, whose PISA scores rank amongst the very best in the world. The Green Party representative, Angela Karadog, meanwhile, appeared to present pupil wellbeing and standards of attainment as somehow mutually exclusive, blaming the media for jumping on the headlines of low standards while ignoring that, in her view, pupils were happier. The idea that wellbeing and academic standards are incompatible raised eyebrows and is unlikely to fly with voters wanting their children to succeed in an intensely challenging jobs market.
With the exception of Reform UK, all the parties were particularly keen to emphasise their desire to ‘listen’ to the profession and support it, with the Welsh Labour, Welsh Lib Dem and Welsh Tory interviewees going as far as to emphasise their own lack of experience in the field. Beyond warm words, though, little specificity could be found on how the country’s pupils might find their outcomes moving in the right direction.
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Curriculum for Wales
Wales’s curriculum framework, published in 2020, bears strong resemblance to Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence, which has faced severe criticism over falling standards, and a widening of inequity of outcomes between rich and poor. Following a difficult decade creating and introducing the Curriculum for Wales (CfW), it was unsurprising that most of the parties seemed unwilling to commit to further major upheaval, despite growing concerns about its compatibility with qualifications and the wider educational infrastructure. The Welsh Conservatives were the outlier, pledging to scrap the purpose-led CfW if PISA scores continue to fall, replacing it with a more knowledge-based curriculum – clear evidence that the party sees education as an area where the Conservatives in England have retained a reputation for competence and success even while the party’s popularity plummeted in other areas in the run-up to the 2024 UK General Election. Reform UK’s manifesto was the only other one to propose what looks like significant change, calling the curriculum ‘vague’ and pledging a refocusing on maths, science and physical education. Their tone towards teachers in the manifesto casts the profession as a problem to be challenged, surveilled and distrusted – including calling for schools’ curriculum materials to be made available to parents, a tall order which conflicts with their promise to cut bureaucracy for teachers.
Reading in the early years
The lack of specific guidance in CfW in relation to systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) has been criticised by journalists and other commentators in the country in recent years. This well-established method of teaching young children to read, widely accepted to close the gap in attainment between deprived pupils and their more affluent peers, was not explicitly mandated in the originally-published version of the curriculum framework. This led some schools to also use a discredited method known as ‘cueing’, in which pupils are encouraged to guess words by looking at the pictures in a book. A belated clarification from the Welsh Government has since ensured the place of SSP in the curriculum, and all the parties, when asked about standards of reading, had an answer prepared that either namechecked SSP specifically, or made some reference to ‘phonics’. On this issue, then, the parties appeared united, though the recent resignation of the chair of the Welsh Government’s expert literacy panel is just one indicator of the level of heat that surrounds the so-called ‘reading wars’. Whoever is in government in May would do well to keep a close eye on this policy area once they are in charge – Wales’ well-documented deficiencies in literacy suggest they will have little choice.
Whoever is in government in May would do well to keep a close eye on this policy area once they are in charge – Wales’ well-documented deficiencies in literacy suggest they will have little choice.
Funding
The promise to spend freely was evident in most parties’ responses, but alas, detail was conspicuous by its absence. Plaid Cymru insisted that their promises of bursaries for student teachers and other short-term, eye-catching measures, were fully costed, but questions remain as to whether they are continuing to rely on more money from Westminster (which, if recent attempts by the Labour-led Welsh Government are anything to go by, feels increasingly unlikely). Their language around funding for schools leaned heavily on the word ‘hope’, and outsourced responsibility to local authorities, already strapped for cash on multiple fronts. The Green Party, who have previously never been a political force in Wales but could now be a king-maker in the Senedd’s proportional system, appeared to have a policy platform which began and ended with agreeing that everything needed to be fully funded, reinforcing the impression that they are not currently a party preparing for government in Wales, despite eye-catching gains over the border. Former social worker Jane Dodds, speaking for the Welsh Lib Dems, focused more on the early pre-school years, promising to provide fully-funded childcare. Reform UK’s manifesto contained nothing at all about school funding, although their ‘DOLGE’ approach to local government efficiency suggests they won’t be afraid to wield the financial axe. The other parties made reference to ‘fighting’ for funding (Welsh Labour), and ‘reviewing’ funding models (Welsh Conservatives), but seemed to imply that voters know the cupboard is pretty bare at this point, and that extravagant promises won’t be believed. Honesty appears the best policy in this case.
Whatever the outcome of the Senedd election on May 7th, the real conclusion to be drawn from these discussions is how many of the education system’s problems appear intractable no matter what your political persuasion.
Teacher Recruitment and Retention
No education system can function without teachers, and multiple reports have laid bare a growing crisis of both recruitment and retention in Wales, particularly in the secondary and Welsh-medium sectors. This also seemed to be a problem too big for any of the parties to tackle with specific policies, and most of them settled instead for warm words about ‘listening to’ or supporting the profession, and vague aspirations to make the job more flexible or more valued. Access to professional learning was mentioned as a way to keep teachers in the job, but this has been promised since at least 2022, with little progress to show for it. The Welsh Conservatives’ Natasha Asghar’s left-field suggestion that student teachers and PhD students could cover classes while teachers went to undertake professional learning was, to put it mildly, questionable for anyone who knows their way around schools, while promises from other candidates of specific entitlements for teachers look prohibitively expensive. Plaid Cymru’s plan to offer inducements to train come at the same time as England have dropped their hugely expensive bursaries with very little to show for it. The profession, exhausted by endless reform, still grappling with a post-Covid hangover, and feeling like WFH culture has passed them by, may be disappointed at the lack of ambition. This is one problem that won’t be going away.
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New dawn?
Whatever the outcome of the Senedd election on May 7th, the real conclusion to be drawn from these discussions is how many of the education system’s problems appear intractable no matter what your political persuasion. While it is important to acknowledge that one can only truly see under the bonnet in positions of genuine power and responsibility, Wales’s new government, of whatever formation, will need much more detailed understanding of education than any party representatives have shown so far if they are to strike the balance between improving the situation and looking after the many dedicated professionals within it. Wales faces an unenviable conundrum of trying to tackle knotty issues facing all public services, against a backdrop of swingeing funding cuts. In the absence of sector- and nation-specific journalism, scrutiny from expert commentators – both external to and within the academic community – will be vital if the Welsh Parliament is to deliver for the people of Wales and silence devo-sceptics fuelled by 27 years of relative underachievement. Wales can and must do better – and it will fall on one, or some of those interviewed, to turn vision into reality.
- You can listen to all of the Senedd election interview series on the Emma & Tom Talk Teaching podcast, available at: https://podcast.show/talkteachingpod and all podcast platforms.
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