Fourth Assembly In Focus : Education

Following the economy and health, my final in-depth look at policy during the Fourth Assembly goes into our classrooms and lecture theatres.

Major Policy Initiatives of the Fourth Assembly

The Donaldson Review – A major review, led by Prof. Graham Donaldson, into the national curriculum in Wales. The proposals mirror those applied in Scotland in 2010, though they're not expected to be fully rolled-out until 2021. They include the scrapping of key stages, the creation of six learning areas and requiring all teachers to have cross-curriculum competences in literacy, numeracy and IT (see also : Detention for Donaldson?). The goal is to create "ambitious, capable learners" who are "healthy and confident".

Schools Challenge Cymru & Regional Consortia – If there's one thing Huw Lewis likes it's new schemes and organisations. The first was aimed at raising standards at the 40 worst-performing schools in Wales by applying additional resources; indications from 2015's GCSE results are that there's been an improvement in the number of pupils achieving 5 good grades. The second scheme is supposed to lead school improvement and share best practice, but reports from Estyn and Wales Audit Office have painted a mixed picture due to uncertainty over their role and a lack of monitoring.

Literacy & Numeracy Tests/Framework & School Banding – Wales was one of the first home nations to scrap the controversial end of key stage SATS tests in 2004 alongside school league tables. Leighton Andrews effectively reintroduced them in 2013 as compulsory literacy and numeracy tests. This was joined by colour-coded school rankings. Both have been criticised by teaching unions; the first for marking rows and statistical issues, the second for causing school rankings to fluctuate wildly year-to-year. A report earlier this year also suggested the improvements sought by the framework could take several years to permeate through, with few indications of an impact so far.

Reorganisation of Colleges & Universities – A Welsh Government-led rationalisation of the further and higher education sectors resulted in several mergers which have created, amongst others, the University of South Wales, Trinty St Davids University (UWTSD), NPT Group, Coleg y Cymoedd and Cardiff & Vale College. It's unclear whether the upheaval caused by mergers has impacted staff or student morale, but it has prompted major capital investments in new campuses, such as Cardiff & Vale College in Butetown or the proposed new UWTSD campus in Swansea SA1.

Education Funding

Pupil spending per head - source

One of Labour's key election manifesto commitments in 2011 was to keep school spending at 1% above any changes to the block grant Westminster uses to fund Wales.

It's quite clear that although spending-per-head has risen over the course of the Fourth Assembly, in the last two years or so Labour probably didn't keep their promise, presumably as more money was diverted to the NHS or by double counting the pupil deprivation grant. Although there have been "real terms" cuts to the block grant, in cash terms it's increased modestly. Therefore, you would've expected schools spending to have risen in line with that throughout the term – but it's unclear whether it has or hasn't.

Elsewhere, the 21^st Century Schools programme has been maintained through the Fourth Assembly, though it's been scaled back and delayed from the original £1.4billion six-year programme announced in 2011, with the Finance Minister seeking non-profit distributive finance in 2014.

The other major scheme is the Liberal Democrats' Pupil Deprivation Grant (PDG), which pays schools £1,050 every pupil aged 5-15 who's eligible for free school meals. It's due to be increased again to £1,150 from 2016-17. There are also smaller payments for Foundation Phase pupils. In 2015-16 the grant totalled £72.4million. Although independent reviews have shown that the PDG has made a difference there've been concerns about how it's being spent.

I'm yet to be convinced that throwing money at problems actually fixes anything. The only area of government policy where that genuinely works is infrastructure, and we've been throwing money at the NHS for the best part of a decade without it really getting us anywhere. The same goes for schools; it comes down to the quality of teachers, class sizes, teacher workloads and the curriculum.

Exam Results

Key exam pass rates - source (GCSE), source (FSM), source (A-Level)

I suppose this is the key measure and there's clear good news, with pass rates steadily rising over the Fourth Assembly at GCSE level, while A-Level pass rates remain relatively high. The next round of PISA results are unlikely to be released before the end of the year, but that's where attentions were focused on a few years back and will be again for whoever succeeds Huw Lewis (see also : A slice of frozen PISA).

The percentage of pupils getting 5 A*-C grades at GCSE, including either English or Welsh and mathematics (Level 2 threshold), is close to hitting 60%. Meanwhile, the functionally useless pass rate marker for A-Level remained at around 97%.

The link between poverty and poor educational attainment has been well established and, not unsurprisingly, the GCSE Level 2 pass rate for those eligible for free school meals remains significantly below average – although Level 2 pass rates have increased in line with GCSE passes for everyone else, and the gap has closed by around 2-3% over the last five exam cycles (see also : AMs demand action to close education gap).

Schools Challenge Cymru was established provide extra help to those schools which are defined as struggling for whatever reason, and some of these 40 schools selected for the programme have seen progress on GCSE results. It's too early to tell whether the scheme as a whole will be a success or not, but there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic.

Further Education

With the ever growing emphasis on work-based learning/apprenticeships this term, you would've thought that the further education sector will be going through a period of growth and investment. In many respects it has – but unfortunately the relevant statistics have only been collected/reported for two years.

What they point to is a decreasing number of college students but an increase in the number of work-based learners and apprenticeships (source). Behind the scenes, however, there's been quite a bit of upheaval (as touched on earlier) with college mergers being pushed through and sizable cuts to the further education budget in some of the budgets passed by the Assembly this term.

So the future looks like being one of fewer, bigger colleges and that brings into question the future of some of Wales' smaller institutions, like Coleg Ceredigion and perhaps even the likes of Bridgend College and Coleg Sir Gar. With some local authorities actively, or actively considering, closure of sixth forms then the role of FE colleges could be about to become greater. Any incoming government will have to ensure there's some focus on the knock-on impact such policies might have on the sector in terms of things like staff, facilities and transport.

Universities

One of the headline, and most contentious, policies of the Fourth Assembly is the tuition fee subsidy, where Welsh-domiciled students only pay up to £4,000 a year regardless of where they choose to study, with the Welsh Government making up the rest. Means-tested living grants have also been made available to those from low income families.

The spirit of the policy is perfectly correct, but ever since the previous Conservative-Lib Dem UK Government lifted the cap on tuition fees, it's clear the policy is becoming increasingly burdensome on the Welsh budget, and is widening the university funding gap between Wales and England – currently estimated to be as high as £115million – while the policy itself was recently estimated to have cost £235million (see also : Welsh tuition fee policy under scrutiny).

Nonetheless, the wrangling over fees and university finance hasn't deterred people from going to university. The number of Welsh-domiciled undergraduates has stayed broadly at the same level of around 78,000 a year since 2011-12 (source), however, while in 2011/12 46% of Welsh-domiciled students studied at a Welsh university, that's dropped slightly to 45% in 2013/14 – presumably because of the tuition fee policy.

It's also worth pointing out that the vast majority of Welsh-domiciled postgraduates who are still based in the UK study in Wales (67%).

Welsh-medium Education

Labour set no concrete targets for the number of pupils educated in Welsh in their 2011 manifesto and they're lucky they didn't.

Percentage of pupils taught mainly or wholly in Welsh - source

Broadly-speaking the numbers of pupils educated in Welsh has increased over the last five years, but there was a surprise dip in the number of secondary school WM pupils in 2014-15, presumably because of a general drop in roll numbers at that age group. Unsurprisingly, most WM pupils live in Y Fro Gymraeg (Gwynedd, Anglesey, Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire), with only Rhondda Cynon Taf and Cardiff having any significant figures outside this area.

There are 36 fewer Welsh-medium schools in 2015 than in 2010. Meanwhile, the number of teachers qualified to teach through Welsh over the same period has remained relatively stable (source)– so it's safe to say Welsh-medium education has expanded at the bottom, but contracted at the top.

Welsh language exam results - source (full course), source (short course)

Next, it's performance in Welsh. The most notable surprise is that GCSE A*-C pass rates in Welsh second language have overtaken Welsh first language. There are a number of possible explanations. Pupils taking the second language full course are going to be more committed than short course students, while as it's taught as a second language it's going to be easier than being taught as a first language (which will be more in-depth). However, pass rates for Welsh first language are, generally, higher than English language (which is also taught in WM schools).

The Education Workforce

The education workforce - source

The only things really worth taking from this are the decrease in the number of headteachers and the growing numbers of teaching assistants.

The latter can probably be explained by the roll out of the Foundation Phase (see also : Foundation Fazed) where a lower staff:pupil ratio is mandated – so these figures aren't unexpected. The problems will start to arise when teaching assistants start teaching, and trade unions have claimed assistants have been asked to stand in for fully-qualified teachers.

Like other parts of the public sector, the teaching workforce is ageing and it's unclear whether there are enough new teachers coming through to take their place. Teaching has an increasingly bad reputation because of the pressures of the job and bureaucracy. Judging by the number of vacancies advertised there appears to be particular problems in recruiting English, maths and (what I presume is Key Stage 3) science teachers (source).

The fall in the number of headteachers could be explained by a simple fall in the number of schools – through closure of small rural schools, mergers or "federated schools". Nevertheless, schools need some sort of leadership and it's slightly worrying that, with the falling number of headteachers, the careers of some promising leaders might stall.

Conclusions

If Labour's record on the economy is broadly "good", and their record on health is broadly "bad" then their education record is mixed with clear good and bad points.

In terms of the good news, exam pass rates are improving year on year, a healthy proportion of young people are going to university and there's been extra help to close the gap in performance between poorer and wealthier pupils.

The PISA scores in 2012 (A slice of frozen PISA) perhaps caused some unnecessary panic – though we're unlikely to find out 2015's results until the end of 2016. The other bad news would be that the Welsh Government haven't really lived up to any non-binding promises they made on Welsh-medium education, while the gap between the best-performing and worst-performing pupils remains dauntingly large. It's also becoming clear current tuition fee policy is untenable.

Like health, the last thing teachers are going to want to hear are more proposals from political parties for "major reforms"; the Donaldson reforms are going to be significant in their own right.

Teachers need to be given a bit of breathing room and existing reforms need a chance to properly bed in; but I'm worried that if there's another set of bad PISA results – or some knock on impact on schools as a result of local government reorganisation - we're going to end up with politicians running around like headless chickens again demanding answers and immediate action on issues that often take years, if not decades, to resolve themselves. We deserve cool heads on this.