Living in Wales it is pretty much impossible to avoid the Welsh Assembly Government’s [WAG] obsession with throwing money and energy at promoting the Welsh Language. Recent research conducted by the Welsh Language Board (which receives annual funding of £12m from WAG) suggested that more than half of people in Wales feel that securing the future of the language is as important as protecting the environment. This worries me, not least because I happen to consider Global Warming just a bit more serious. Let me say right now that I have no problem with the Welsh language, if you want to speak it, promote it, learn it then good luck to you. However, I do have major reservations with the sheer amount of money being thrown at a language that is essentially dead.
Education in Wales is poorly funded and FE in particular has faced cuts in funding this year. Although WAG will be quick to point out that these cuts have been reversed, the reality is that core funding has been settled on last years figures, meaning colleges are still facing significant deficits, resulting in a substantial reduction in courses and many job losses. Further Education is becoming increasingly ‘consumer led’ which means that the more people who want to do a course, the more likely it is to run. This has led to a situation that the biggest departments in an FE college tend to be Health and Beauty, brickwork / plumbing / construction; which is not necessarily a reflection of the skills actually needed locally or nationally.
The trouble with the way FE is funded is that courses are increasingly judged by profitability rather than whether the skills being taught are actually in demand in the current or projected job markets. In simple terms colleges receive funding per student and in order for the full funding to be obtained for each student a grade needs to be obtained at the end of the course. So, if you receive a set figure for each student, the larger the class, the more profitable the course is to run (because the teacher is a reasonably fixed and stable cost). So if 5 people wanted to do an A-Level then the college would not put the course on because with a ratio of 5 students to 1 teacher the college would probably be running at a loss to offer it. Therefore course would not run, even if the local job market identified a particular skills need that the course would meet.
On the other hand, the local area may be absolutely saturated with mobile hair-dressers, but this would not stop the college from offering a profitable course that is oversubscribed each year. Welcome to the unique and wonderful way that FE is funded.
These ramblings bring me back to my main point: in a time when FE and HE are struggling with the poor funding settlements that they have received, why are WAG still able and willing to throw vast sums of money at the Welsh language? For example the recent funding settlement for HE included a 1.29% cut for Cardiff University - one of the finest universities in the UK - whilst inexplicably giving the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies a funding increase of 47.5%. The Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies is dedicated to Celtic research and is currently undertaking the following projects:
Now, I am a firm believer in the value of history and the importance of understanding where we come from and what impact our ancestry has on who we are today. However, I am also pragmatic when it comes to educational funding and can see that this research group fuels a small group of elite academics and readers, whilst mainstream mass education suffers at a time when there is already concern over a funding gap in FE and HE between Wales and England.
The sad thing is that whilst public spending comes into sharper focus following increased public debt the Welsh Assembly are still insisting that the promotion of the Welsh language remains a spending priority. Whilst it slashes FE / HE funding with one hand, it digs deep with the other to propose a new body to ‘oversee Welsh-medium education’. The proposed body would employ around 200 staff over the next ten years with projected additional costs of £6.1m per annum.
Again, is the provision of education in Welsh really a priority? I have lived in Wales since 2003 and have taught at a number of schools and colleges, including colleges that had many students for whom Welsh was a first language. I taught A-Level English to students who had been taught through the medium of Welsh from a young age and they struggled with English as a result - putting those students at a tremendous disadvantage. The majority of the students whom I taught wanted to go to an English university, yet their English language skills were poor as a result of being taught in the medium of Welsh for so long.
Whilst I understand that often being taught bi-lingually from a young age has many benefits to overall mental capacity, yet unless both languages are mastered then I fail to see the benefit to the child. This is a particular reality with Welsh because the language has such a poor number of speakers, being fluent in Welsh may offer opportunities to work within Wales, but I fail to see how it offers any opportunities outside of Wales. Whilst, at the same time, if the acquisition of an archaic language has damaged the acquisition of the most spoken language on earth, then I’d argue the students are being disadvantaged.
I currently work in a large FE college deep in the Welsh valleys and I’ve never met a Welsh speaker since I’ve worked here. What I have met is many students who struggle with basic literacy and numeracy skills. I’ve met students who have had to leave college because they cannot afford to attend or who have not been able to do the course they wanted because it has been cancelled due to its lack of profitability. These are the problems I see everyday in education and I wonder when so many students are failing to grasp fundamental literacy skills in English and no grasp of Welsh (and they do live in a predominantly English speaking country, even more relevant when Wales remains tightly linked to England) WAG still insist that promoting Welsh is a priority.
The Welsh Assembly government seem to have fallen into the trap of trying to create an independent and historically valid Wales, rather than working towards a modern and cosmopolitan Wales that looks forward rather than back. When they created the Senedd building the Welsh Assembly spent £70m including around £600,000 on art. The justification for this is that the building had to compete in grandeur with the Houses of Parliament, so in essence it was an attempt to buy legitimacy for the Welsh Assembly. Likewise the new building in Merthyr Tydfil (£11.3m) and current construction at Llandudno Junction (projected at £25-30m) are more attempts to buy the grandeur that the WAG feels they need to operate successfully.
The Welsh Assembly seems to be able to miraculously find money when funding the Welsh language or its own staff or buildings, yet is cutting FE funding to the bone which directly impacts in some of the poorest areas of the UK (suffering from the largest numbers of unemployment). The total staff costs for the WAG for 1999-2000 was £44.5m, for 2007-2008 it was £239.9m. I wonder how long it will be before people start asking real questions about the WAG’s spending and priorities, because - to me - they seem wildly out of kilter with the reality of living and working in Wales.
