Plaid Cymru’s education spokesperson, Nerys Evans AM, has broadly welcomed plans floated by the education minister today for tackling illiteracy and innumeracy in Wales, however she warned that more radical action and ambitious planning was needed if Plaid’s goal of eradicating illiteracy in children leaving primary school by 2020 is to achieved.
Ms Evans said that she welcomed the Minister’s recognition of the current failings of the system and his indication that he would be looking to make improvements to teacher training, the monitoring of standards and classroom behaviour. However the Plaid AM expressed serious concern about some aspects of the Minister’s speech, particularly his suggestion that some failing schools should be considered beyond redemption and closed down.
Plaid Cymru Education spokesperson, Nerys Evans AM said:
“There are several proposals raised by the Minister in his speech this morning that I broadly welcome and I look forward to seeing these in full detail. However I am concerned that despite expectations his plans are not adequately ambitious to tackle the very real challenge that we are facing here in Wales. As I have previously stated, if our children are to get the education they deserve, then the current system needs to be radically overhauled and transformed. It is Plaid’s aim to eradicate illiteracy in children leaving primary school by 2020 and I have set out how we would achieve that.
“Instead of asking why a child is failing, we need to ask why the teaching method is failing the child. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to improve teacher training, and I will be pushing the Minister to ensure that this goes far enough. We need to look at innovative and alternative teaching methods such as synthetic phonics as is being proposed by Plaid Cymru. We also need to be bold in making changes to structures such as term times and Estyn inspections in order to ensure that our children get the best possible education. The Minister is also right to look at discipline in classrooms and behaviour management techniques and I look forward to seeing further detail on the measures he will take to address this.
“However I am very seriously concerned at the Minister’s suggestion that some schools should be abandoned when things are going wrong. The principle that any school should be beyond redemption or cannot be turned around is a very dangerous one. I am of the firm opinion that no matter how bad things get, with the right leadership and the right teachers, working together with the local community, any school can be turned round. To close schools rather than taking actions to make them successful would be a dangerous and very short term fix. It would be wrong to abandon our children and their communities in that way.”
