Welsh Conservatives today warned that Labour’s failure to improve educational standards puts young people in Wales at a disadvantage in the UK jobs market.
Nick Bourne, Leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the National Assembly, today unveiled an ad-van highlighting that under Labour, Wales has the worst school results in the UK.
The most recent PISA results, which compare academic performance in key skills across developed nations, revealed that Wales had the worst results of UK nations in literacy, numeracy and science and ranked as low as 40th out of 67 nations in the key tests.
Nick Bourne said, “Children in Wales are being let down by Labour politicians, who have presided over falling academic standards, a backlog of school repairs and have burdened teachers with unnecessary paperwork.
“Labour’s failure risks putting young people in Wales at a disadvantage in the UK jobs market because Welsh school results are the worst in the UK.
“If we want to create an enterprising economy in Wales where aspiration and ambition are allowed to flourish, we need to give our young people a fighting chance.
“We live in a global economy where young people face competition from other UK nations and from overseas in the search for jobs.
“We must ensure that young people have the necessary skills in reading, maths and science, but also the important life skills of modern foreign languages and entrepreneurship to compete in the jobs market.
“Even the education Minister has admitted that his Labour Government’s education policies have failed to improve standards.
“The Welsh education system is entering a critical phase, where, with the right measures we could stem this decline and raise academic standards.”
Paul Davies, Welsh Conservative candidate for Preseli Pembrokeshire said, “Labour has let our children down, by bombarding our teachers with unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy, which has prevented many from getting on with their jobs.
“Welsh Conservatives would trust teachers and parents, because they know better than politicians what is best for their local school.
“A good teacher is critical to a young person’s academic and vocational success, but only if that teacher is empowered to make informed decisions about what is best for a student’s education.
“Welsh Conservatives have set out an ambitious programme to narrow the attainment gap between Wales and England so our young people are not left at a disadvantage.
“Unlike Labour and Plaid, we will actively seek partnership funding for a major school building programme so our children can learn in state of the art learning environments.
“The people of Wales deserve better and that’s why the Welsh Conservatives will be a new voice for Wales.”
