Labour Welsh government not on track to meet 1 million Welsh speakers target

Plaid Cymru has criticised the Labour Welsh government’s lack of ambition and lack of commitment towards reaching the 1 million Welsh speakers target by 2050.

The party cited a fall in the number of children who are receiving Welsh medium education over the last three years and the fact that only two new Welsh medium schools have opened over the same period. Cefin Campbell, the party’s Education spokesperson said that this was an incredibly worrying situation.

The party also said that a fall in the number of teachers across the board in Wales by almost 600 was incredibly worrying, as many of these would have played an intrinsic role in growing the Welsh language in our education system.

Cefin Campbell, Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson for Education, said:

“It is both incredibly worrying and disappointing to see the Labour Welsh Government’s lack of ambition and poor planning towards reaching the million Welsh speakers target by 2050. Quite clearly there’s no hope of reaching this target with the lack of urgency and focus by the current Welsh government.

“There has been a fall in the number of children who are receiving Welsh medium education, and the fact that only two new Welsh medium schools have been opened in Wales over the last three years is a damning indictment of the lack of vision and commitment by the Labour government.

“Plaid Cymru has consistently called for more investment in teachers and for more Welsh medium schools to be opened. Ironically, I’m sure we’ll see Labour ministers this week at the Eisteddfod claiming that they are committed to the 1 million target but unfortunately there’s no evidential basis to support this ambition.

“However, it’s clear for all to see that the strong foundations that are needed to be put in place now in order to achieve the target are just not being implemented. There has been no significant improvement over the last few years to the number of teachers who can teach through the Welsh language and there is a huge geographical difference within Wales as to whether there are teachers available locally or opportunities to teach through the medium of Welsh. There’s also a significant number of teachers who can teach through the Welsh language but are not currently employed to do so. The fall in the number of teachers shows that this Labour government has also not got to grips with the teacher recruitment and retention crisis we are facing in Wales.

“I sincerely hope that the Labour Welsh government seizes the opportunity through the appointment of a new First Minister to revisit its commitment to the language, and ensure that the Welsh Language and Education Bill is robust enough to enable significant growth in the language. We need ambition, but we also need positive action.”