Dwylo Cerrig asks what the future holds for Welsh-medium education and should the Welsh Lib Dems follow a different policy path on the issue.
There is a Welsh policy issue where the meat and veg goes beyond constitutional willy-waving.
As difficult a concept as that may be for Lib Dems to accept (is Senedd-Westminster ping-pong and LCO breadth vs. depth really not the be all and end all?!); the government’s consultation on the Welsh medium education strategy will be of longer lasting impact that the language LCO.
The hype and bluster surrounding the LCO and its parliamentary process will more easily provoke the culture clash so beloved by the BBC, Echo, Maes-e et al, but a long-term language education strategy is where it’s at if we’re serious about a bilingual or even a tri-lingual/quadralingual nation. But first, there are serious grown-up questions to be answered by policy-makers.
If the Lib Dems believe in a less prescriptive curriculum, which they do in Scotland and England but less so in Wales, where does compulsory language learning fit into this?
If we are in support of a degree of parental and student choice, does this mean trying to make all schools bilingual or ensuring that a pupil in Abergavenny has the right to Welsh-medium secondary schooling as much as pupil in Nefyn has the right to English-medium schools?
Should those majority of pupils at Welsh-medium schools in South Wales who come from non-Welsh speaking backgrounds receive their Welsh-medium education in a different stream/system to those from Welsh-speaking backgrounds?
It may be a surprise to some that an “Anglo-centric” party would wish to bother itself with these questions. But a party that has a Welsh-language thread running through its manifestos, and led on Iaith Pawb, has earned the right to take this once in a generation opportunity to challenge orthodoxies (whether your Taffia is old-school Welsh-sceptical (anti-Welsh to use the lazy parlance preferred by unthinking nationalists) or the Bethans and Brychans of the BBC, each is all too unwilling to look afresh at these issues, less the accusation of treachery comes their way).
Let’s just concentrate on one aspect to finish the article and hopefully for us to start considering our position. Does compulsory second-language Welsh GCSEs really develop bilingual citizens?
For the few that are Cymraeg competent enough to hold a conversation in Clwb Ifor Bach there are many more who will still be at chwech a saith in the workplace should Welsh be needed, or even resentful at being “forced” to study a language they see no outlet for. Now, I think we can agree that they would be incorrect to take that view, but shouldn’t the balance of options be made fairer –wouldn’t there be better results if efforts and the limited resources available were concentrated on developing bilingualism in our primary schools instead of catch-up between 11 and 16?
Make it so that access to learning Welsh in early and primary years provides pupils and parents with legitimate options to continue through to secondary Welsh-medium study, English medium-study with continued Welsh language learning or English medium with no Welsh if that’s the preferred choice. How we re-shape the system to make this happen should form the basis of our policy approach on this issue.
The progressives amongst us have our case distorted when the already dubious cause of nation-building mutates into the creation of shibboleths that can only be protected by the self-appointed defenders of Cambria. That’s why the Welsh Lib Dems need to find a new vantage point and take a hard look at the long-term planning of Welsh-medium education and be realistic but bold, progressive and innovative.
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