Education The Wales Report

Tonight on The Wales Report - From Nursery to University,

the Welsh Government is responsible for your education.

In two weeks you'll have your say at the ballot box and tonight we'll

hear what the five main parties are offering you.

Stay with us for Election Wales 2016.

This year the Welsh Government spends ?1.7 billion on education -

and throughout the first 17 years of devolution it's been an area

poor performance in international rankings and radical curriculum

reform - this is the policy area which has diverged most

Tonight we ask whether the Welsh system is up to scratch.

Join in the debate on social media - #thewalesreport.

with some teachers' views from Ferndale Community School

Wherever you are from should not effect your opportunities in life or

your target in life because everybody is the same after all. It

doesn't matter about your background, as long as you work

hard, even if you find it difficult, if it is what you want to do, go for

that subject. Why is this a good example? I do feel pressure with my

job, there are pressures put on teachers but they are there because

we want the students to do well. I think they should be supporting

places for teachers to ensure that they are able to manage workload and

there are opportunities for development and nurturing talent

because there are so many successful teachers we need to make sure stay

in the profession. I think there is a greater focus now on the

attainment of schools and it's not a bad thing. The first thing we had to

know is how well we were competing with other nations, internationally.

The fact we were found wanting in certain areas is not a bad thing,

you need to know where you are and what needs to be done in order to

improve. I would like to see flexibility in the system for

schools to address the particular needs of learners in its care. As we

move towards ever increasing standards regarding qualifications,

that the curriculum is not restricted so much that

opportunities for children are increasingly narrowed. There has to

be some pressure on us to do well but I think when we are under

pressure we get worried and we don't do as well. Whereas when we are more

relaxed and we know what we are doing and are calm, we tend to

succeed better than when we are nervous.

Views from Ferndale Community School there.

Joining me tonight - from the Labour Party,

From the Conservatives, Angela Burns.

And Eluned Parrott fom the Liberal Democrats.

There are, of course, other parties standing

in the election - you can get all the information on the BBC

Thank you for joining us tonight. Let's start with money because that

is the key, many would argue. Huw Lewis, we know pupils in Wales

receive less money than those in England and have done for years so

why do they deserve less money? None of this is true. There is an old

figure, you said for years... The last figure is 2011. The last figure

is quite a way back in time. Have we caught up? We have overtaken England

in the educational spend, the figures from the Treasury showed

that Wales is 4% ahead of England. We have been investing in our

schools but in England things have been going in a different direction

and that is a matter for them but it is true that we have put ?200

million extra over this semi term investment into our schools, our

front line. -- over this Assembly term. Why have you decreased it?

There is a relative protection in terms of school spent and what we

have seen in terms of everyday spend, ?200 million extra, but also,

let's not forget the eighth ?2 billion programme of capital

investment in school buildings. We are carrying on with investment in

schools, a programme which ground to a halt under the Conservatives in

England. It has carried on in Wales. A lot of you were sniggering. You

don't believe this figure? I'm afraid not. The National union of

teachers were clear not long ago, they put together what they thought

their funding gap was now and it is in the order of the height 700s. And

one of the ways to release funding for schools is to directly fund them

and that way they will be able to get more money to the front line and

empower headteachers and teachers to reflect what their community needs.

Are we talking academies? No, it is horses for courses essentially and

there is no desire to have academies here. We have so much structural

change happening at the moment in education and we need to empower

those headteachers, give them the funds because they know their

communities and they need to be freed up, as your report showed,

teachers are... What is the difference between what you are

proposing and an academy? None whatsoever. Directly funding school

under the scrutiny of the local education authority and empowering

headteachers to spend their money for their school... It sounds like

an Academy. Of course not because there was no private investment,

this is about ensuring that more money, we want to aim for 90%, it

was a Labour goal, another they sadly failed to achieve. We want 90%

to get to the front line. We need schools with money, teachers that

are empowered to deliver what that local community wants all stop would

you increase spending per pupil in Plaid Cymru?

We have the recognised this is a tight spend, delivering money

directly to schools does not help, they just had to buy back the

services provided by the local education authority. If you have a

child with special needs in your school, it can be extremely

expensive for small schools to cope with. At the moment it is dealt with

by the local authorities are giving the funding directly to the school

does not help them. The overall funding alone the -- envelope

includes spending on higher education and we will come onto that

but it is important to say that when the Labour Party says we spend more

on education in Wales, it isn't just schools. If you just take schools

and compare them like for like,... And we are focusing on school at the

moment. We have to get more to the front line, I don't dispute that.

Would you spend more per pupil in Wales? Overall, yes. But we have to

be honest, this is not a huge spending splurge, we don't have the

resources. You -- Ukip, would you increase spending

per pupil in Wales? We want to look at the way the funding is allocated

to the schools and make sure we use the same formula throughout Wales

for each school, taking into account any special needs that school may

have. We have not had the statistics to look at the difference in funding

so whether the figures you are giving us are true or not, I could

not comment. The English figures don't exist because they have been

obscured by the Conservative government. I can give you a Welsh

figures. Would you increase spending on education? Yes, we would. The

Liberal Democrats? Would you increase spending per pupil in

Wales? We would target the spending we have for education. The pupil

deprivation grant was eight key Welsh Lib Dem priority introduced in

partnership with the Welsh Government and it has been the most

successful education policy in terms of social mobility and improving

outcomes come lowering the gap between the poorest and wealthiest

pupils. We have to macro priorities, one of those is to increase and

extend that grant to make sure we can continue to close the gap. As

the pupils said in the film, it should not matter where you came

from and what your start in life is, you should have an equal crack at

the whip. It sounds expensive, where would you cut to fund it? Scrapping

the regional consortia which are a layer of bureaucracy which we do not

think it is helpful or productive for the schools and as part of that

package of funding, that is one thing we would do. Looking at

standards, there is so much to talk about the standards, teacher

training and the standard of teaching in Wales. The annual report

in 2016 talks of a huge contrast in teaching between the best and the

worst schools and the best schools are often in deprived areas so you

cannot blame socioeconomic factors. Why is it? It is all about the

quality of teaching. That is why we have embarked upon the biggest

reform programme since 1944 which has at its heart, and further

community School is one of the Pioneer schools in this regard, --

Ferndale Community School. It is all about raising the skill levels and

aptitude levels of the teachers. Is this a new programme? It has been

embarked upon over the last few months. It's not new. The First

Minister admitted he took his eye off the ball when it came to

education after ten years of drift and decline. I don't disagree with

something 's Huw has said, it is fairly new, looking at teacher

training and standards I don't disagree with that. The key to

improving the system is in that but I disagree that the Labour Party is

capable of doing it because they have inherited and continued with a

decline in standards relative to the rest of the UK -- rest of the UK.

With the best will in the world, with ten years of decline. And four

years with the Liberal Democrats before that. We know who to blame.

We're not just offering a blame game. What would you do to drive

teaching standards? We would look at the successful schools in the

valleys like Ferndale, they have excellent leaders in their schools,

excellent headteachers, excellent departmental heads who are able to

drive standards and motivate and infuse not only the teachers but the

staff around them. We need to invest in those leadership skills for our

schools to make sure they succeed in the future. Your big idea is Grammar

schools. How would you focus on getting the best teachers? What is

your policy for getting the best teachers? Well, grammar schools is

not the only thing, obviously. We'd like to see the reintroduction of

grammar schools. Why? What would the reintroduction of grammar schools

achieve for standards? We don't feel one size fits all, comprehensive

schools don't suit every child. I put two children through

comprehensive schools. So have I and they came out wonderfully. That

isn't because it was a comprehensive School, that is because your

children where able to do it. I went to a grammar school and I saw my

fellow pupils written off at the age of 11 when they couldn't even get a

levels at that stage, they were told they could not go to university,

they were for May bring jobs and nothing else. You are going back 30

years with no clue about the modern world. It's important to realise a

couple of things about the teaching profession, we have over 100 empty

headteacher posts in schools in Wales, more days taken off sick for

stress by teachers, teachers feel under the cosh, overregulated,

underfunded and under supported. What is the idea? A centre for

education? A number of things and they tie in together, one is about

freeing up headteachers and allowing a school to react to its community.

You can tie that in with a more robust initial teacher training

programme, two years to produce teachers that are really, really

top-quality and have all the skills and supports. They are not popped

into a job and expected to learn on the job. And you can tie it in with

a college of teaching that works with the government and with Iestyn

to support teachers, to set standards, to enable continuous

professional development. To do disciplinary matters as well. A

college that can really set the standards. We are leaving education

to the educators, not to a micromanaging government because

that is what has gone horribly wrong in the last 17 years. We just heard

from the front line of Ferndale Community School, where these things

that there are many things that I do not disagree with which are

happening and being controlled by the teaching professionals. You let

standards slip on your watch. Would you acknowledge you let standards

slip on your watch? Standards have risen every year. Professor John

Furlong said there is a broad consensus across Wales that in

relation to current enquire requirements teacher education is

not as strong as it should be. Who commissioned that? This is why we

have a completely new future for initial teacher training. It is

being laid out through the Furlong report, a review I commission, a

Welsh Labour government has acted upon it. And came back and slap you

in the face and said it was not good enough. The reason I asked John

Furlong to undertake the review was we knew full well there were gaps in

the system and we were not performing as well as we could. Can

I say there is one inescapable truth. There is no education system

that can be better than the quality of the teachers that teach it. That

is why teachers are so incredibly important and why the Welsh

Conservatives are absolutely proud of the fact we have put teachers in

the centre of our manifesto. On teachers, Susan Boucher, tell us

your plan, would you change the way teachers operate in Wales or are you

happy with the status quo? I'm very concerned about teachers in Wales.

Number of my friends are in the teaching profession and they are

absolutely old down with paperwork, performance management, lesson

planning. Teachers need a new deal to tackle this. They are working

until nine o'clock at night marking. Tell us what your plan is, how would

you change that? We would want to reduce the teachers' workload, make

sure we put in the right teachers into our schools, that they've got

the right qualifications. It's all very well putting qualified teachers

in with skills in science and mathematics at we're not retaining

them. We have to make sure that we keep these excellent teachers in our

schools to raise standards. Because, let's be honest, the Labour

government has let it slip really badly. Let's look at testing

concerning many pupils and parents, and your proposals. Would pupils be

tested more, less or about the same as they are tested at the moment? We

think the level of testing we have at the moment is very bureaucratic,

it is very burdensome for schools, so we need to make sure that we are

refining that and making it as simple to deliver as possible.

However, we must make sure we are assessing pupils appropriately and

regularly throughout their school life. We certainly do not want to

increase the burden of testing our pupils have at the moment. As they

are tested at the moment, you would stay like that. Simon Thomas, more

or less testing? The long-term aim is to move away from the testing we

have at the moment, that is set out in Donaldson, the new curriculum in

Wales and the way the profession itself will become more

self-regulating and self testing if you like and I want to get to a

position which cannot be done overnight, I will not drop testing

overnight because there is a... That is the goal? No testing and Plaid

Cymru, that's the vision? That's the vision and not just Plaid Cymru,

Donaldson, an independent report says that command all the main

parties have said that's the way forward for education in Wales. Are

some good examples in Wales are in a Plaid Cymru run authority, it has a

good way of tracking individual schools, not with tests but almost

daily knowledge of what they are achieving and that must be rolled

out throughout Wales. Testing, Carwyn Jones said clearly last week

I want testing and I want to know how my children are doing. Would you

continue with the status quo, or do you want more testing? I know you

are leaving but what would a Labour government offer? It is imperative

to stick with testing for this period of time. But as Simon has

said, he is quite right, the future for Wales and Welsh education is

laid out in the Donaldson report and it's about evolution towards where

the best systems in the world actually are, which is about

assessment for learning been driven by the professional in the

classroom. But we're not ready for that yet. There are stages we need

to pass through to get there. You scrapped testing for 14-year-olds,

Sats went. I didn't scrapped testing. Labour government did. You

stopped it. Many people interpret that period as the period you to

your eye off the ball. As a government, not you personally, Huw

Lewis, but the government. Going back to testing, is that returning

to taking your eye off the ball? I would encourage everyone, and I

think there is a consensus almost around the table here, that the

destination for us is to be somewhere where the finished

education system, the Dutch education system -- the Finnish

education system. The stuff being in the hands of the professional and

about my plastic testing individualised to the people.

International comparisons, which bring us onto Pisa, the

International tests for 65 countries, and Wales in maths it

came 43rd, reading 41st, science 36 are not great. Angela for the

Conservatives, Angela Burns, what would be your approach to Pisa?

Would you prioritise it more than the current government? No, I

wouldn't because it goes down a difficult path. It is important to

keep the Pisa testing because it gives as a benchmark and we need

benchmarks because I agree that we were led into the wilderness years

by Labour when they scrapped everything. Let's be clear, there is

a huge amount of change in education, the Donaldson Review,

everything happening with teacher training, and we cannot put yet

another rigorous set of mechanisms in place. When Wales doesn't perform

greatly, may at the end of this year, you will not attack them? You

have just said you would not put more weight on them and you are

happy to park them in a way. I didn't say I would park them, but I

wouldn't change my curriculum just to meet a Pisa test result. How will

performance improved? We must look at a range of benchmarks including

Pisa, Pisa is incredibly important because it tells us where we are on

the global stage and benchmarking is incredibly important. The right way

to use things like Pisa as a benchmark is if we start to fall

back and fail we have to ask ourselves fundamental questions

about why that is the case. The problem with the way testing is

delivered in Wales at the moment is it is aiming for the average, you

are trying to get a cohort to the average performance for their group.

What we are not doing is teaching individuals to achieve to the best

of their individual ability and that unfortunately is a big failing in

the systematic moment. There seems to be a disconnect come and tell me

if I'm wrong, when it comes to Pisa. In that governments and opposition

parties put a great deal of emphasis on them but schools don't because

they are focusing on GCSE and A-level and so forth. Absolutely.

But... Letter talk to Ukip on this, on Pisa testing how would you

improve the results? When you look back on 1997 before the Welsh

Assembly started, we were right up there on the Pisa rankings and where

are we now? I think you are making that up. Wales wasn't assessed

separately under Pisa, it was a UK assessment. Are standing in Wales

was not very high. These are not the facts. But as macro focus on the

future of Pisa testing, how would you approach it? I agree it is good

as a benchmark to see where our standings are. Sorry, I've lost my

train of thought now. Would you make it a priority for schools to teach

to that method of testing? No, I wouldn't make it a priority for

schools at all. Huw Lewis, let's end on this. Do you expect the Pisa

results to go up? I'm very hopeful and optimistic that they will, yes.

This is what he said last time! What matters here is it is not about

teaching to Pisa, that would be a disastrous strategy for any

government to undertake. We're not preparing our pupils for them, is

that fair? You succeed in Pisa when you have excellence in teaching and

learning in the classroom. It is a test of the whole education system.

That is the test. On Pisa, what is Plaid Cymru's approach? We have a

target to improve over ten years. Thank you for now. Let's graduate to

universities, an area of equal, if not more, controversy than the

schools. Tuition fees have been

at the centre of the argument. Unlike Westminster,

the Welsh Government awards grants for tuition of up to ?5,000

whether you study inside or outside Universities across Wales

feel their funding And their performance in league

tables has been less We've been to Glyndwr

University in Wrexham to get Funding, funding, funding. I think

as far as being a student is concerned it is something that comes

up all the time. In conversations at University, no matter what

background you are from. Funding is always at the forefront of your mind

when you want to go and study. Student tuition fees at the

forefront of the debate. The tuition fee grants support going to

individual students goes wherever they study, of course. That means

that a large English university like the University of the West of

England in Bristol is getting more money on grant support out of Wales

than Glyndwr is to support infrastructure which means Welsh

universities are struggling to get the resources to put together a

quality higher education system and that has to change. It is really

important that universities forge strong links with the communities we

are in hand with businesses because our students need to get relevant

work experience. We need to find good volunteering opportunities for

them seven they can learn and grow. Our students make a difference

globally, so if we want to make a difference to the Welsh economy,

investment in universities really is crucial. The big challenge facing

higher education in Wales really is resources. It's about how we put in

place a really high class education system that students want, that

delivers for employers, and that provides a basis for