Ceredigion County Council revealed today, 8 January 2010, that it is now appealing directly to Welsh Assembly Government Ministers to intervene to secure postponement of the A, AS and GCSE level modular examinations scheduled to take place across Wales next week. Ceredigion’s appeal also has the backing of Powys County Council.
The Leader of Ceredigion County Council, Councillor EJ Keith Evans explained: “Ceredigion, one of the most rural counties of Wales, is still struggling to open roads on its rural roads network. Some of the lowest temperatures recorded in Wales this week have been in Ceredigion and there is yet more snow scheduled to hit us this weekend. Our Education and Community Services Department has tried and tried to get the WJEC to understand the position pupils in rural areas like Ceredigion face and to agree to postponement of the A, AS and GCE level modular examinations scheduled to take place across Wales next week. It simply isn’t fair that the futures of a whole generation of pupils across rural Wales should stand to be jeopardised by an inability to appreciate the ongoing gravity of the situation. I am trying to contact Leighton Andrews AS, the Welsh Assembly Government’s Minister for Children, Education and Lifelong Learning to appeal for his intervention and I have already spoken to Elin Jones AS the Welsh Assembly Government’s Minister for Rural Affairs and, of course, Ceredigion’s Assembly Member .”
105 pupils across Ceredigion’s seven secondary and comprehensive schools are scheduled to sit A, AS and GCSE level modular examinations scheduled to take place next week, starting Monday 11 January 2010. These numbers will increase to 145 on Tuesday, 157 on Wednesday and peak at 523 on Thursday. All of those schools have been closed all through this week apart from Cardigan having been able to open for two days to accommodate pupils scheduled sitting these examinations next week.
Ceredigion’s Director of Education and Community Services, Mr Eifion Evans, explained: “We have done our utmost to explain the position to the WJEC. Even though the headmasters of all seven Ceredigion schools scheduled to stage these modular examinations next week are determined to try their utmost to ensure the schools are opened for the pupils to sit the examinations, the obvious complication is the issue of whether or not the young people concerned can physically get to the schools. The problem is not unique to Ceredigion, of course, but it seems so unfair that, through absolutely no fault of their own, significant numbers of Welsh youngsters should have to suffer the prospect of having their futures blighted by this set of circumstances.”
