New curriculum for Wales: a mortal blow to Welsh-medium education?
May 4, 2019
Implementing the Welsh Government's proposal to make English teaching compulsory in all nursery and school-funded schools would be a mortal blow to Welsh medium education.
Implementing the Welsh Government's proposal to make English teaching compulsory in all nursery and school-funded schools would be a mortal blow to Welsh medium education.
This is RhAG's response following the publication of the White Paper on the new curriculum, 'The Mission of Our Nation: A Transformational Curriculum'.
Wyn Williams, National Chair of RhAG said,
"Implementing this clause would be completely devastating to the language, and indeed it could lead to the demise of Welsh-medium education. It is quite staggering that such a proposal has been included in the final Paper.
"The Minister needs to understand - and in fact, she should already be aware - that it is in the nursery and school classes that children of non-Welsh speaking families are given the necessary grounding in Welsh. In all other areas, English is the dominant language. This domain must be protected if we want to ensure that our children acquire the language and become fluent in Welsh. Internationally established and recognised research supports this."
According to Tim Pearce, a parent who moved from England to live in Barry,
"Given the prevalence of bilingualism across the world, when we moved to Wales, we saw a great opportunity in Welsh medium education. Perhaps all parents who have no experience of Welsh-medium education are worried at the beginning when they see their children concentrating on their Welsh only. There is no need to worry, however. They master their English later as well as children in English-medium schools, if not better. Our children have succeeded in their education and their professional lives, and bilingualism is a valuable support for them."
Wyn Williams added,
"Wales has been at the forefront of minority language immersion on the international stage and other countries have looked to us as an example of good practice. There is no doubt that this proposal flies in the face of all Government policies to expand Welsh language education over the last decade, it would undermine the national goal of having a million Welsh speakers by 2050, not to mention the huge contribution and growth of the Welsh-medium education movement over the last 70 years. It would be a serious mistake if the Welsh Government decided to follow this path.
"This must be opposed, and I urge the Minister for Education to confirm that the Welsh Government will withdraw the proposal at once."