Thank you very much, Chair, and bore da. I was going to ask some general questions about the value of the baccalaureate. Could you give us your views on how the Welsh bac is valued by learners and teachers?
Bore da, Julie, and thank you very much for your question. Firstly, I'd like to begin by saying that I as the Cabinet Secretary value the qualification very much indeed. I believe that it helps ensure that we are able to give our young people in Wales a broad and balanced curriculum, recognising the need to develop knowledge and skills in core subjects but recognising also that the purpose of education is to help prepare our children for further study and the world of work, and I believe that the skills challenge element of the baccalaureate does just that. I meet with young people and teachers all the time who tell me about the positive experiences they have had studying for the Welsh bac, and much of that was evidenced in Qualifications Wales's review into the Welsh baccalaureate. They did focus group work with a representative sample, and many of the learners expressed the fact that they have enjoyed studying for the qualification and have gained a great deal from it. I meet regularly with individuals who have been able to use their bac to successfully gain a place at university, so I believe there's a huge value for Welsh young people being able to study this particular qualification alongside the more traditional qualifications that perhaps we're all used to. I think the challenge is that, given that many people are very familiar with what a GCSE is and, as parents, we will know what that is and many of us will have done—some of us are so old we'll have done O-levels. We know what those traditional qualifications look like, and therefore a new qualification—there's always a job of work to do to communicate that, if people aren't used to it, but I value it hugely. I think that, whilst there is always room for improvement—and, of course, you'll be aware of the review that Qualifications Wales undertook and that has suggested ways in which we can further improve and refine the qualification, but I think it is a valuable piece of work for Welsh young people to undertake.
It's great that you've been around listening to learners and what they have said about it. Have you had any negative feedback?
Well, occasionally, of course, we do have concerns raised with us, and those concerns are similar to the ones that have been raised in the Qualifications Wales review. So, for instance, we sometimes have concerns about how some students balance the Welsh bac with other qualifications they may be taking. Some teachers feed back around the workload issues associated with the Welsh baccalaureate. For some students, there may be concerns about the nature of the Welsh bac and whether that can impact negatively on their well-being. And, obviously, that's why Qualifications Wales have undertaken this piece of work so that we can refine, if necessary, that qualification and how we continue to look at how we ensure my belief that taking the Welsh bac should be the norm for students but also recognising that, in some cases, there needs to be flexibility to ensure that the well-being of the student is not compromised.