§ Mr. Barry JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the number of Welsh-medium teachers needed to staff the national curriculum; what is the current number of Welsh language teachers employed by local education authorities in Wales; and what is the number of students currently training as Welsh-medium teachers.
§ Mr. Wyn RobertsThe national curriculum is not expected to create a need for more Welsh-medium teachers overall in the short term. However its introduction will increase the number of secondary Welsh-medium teachers required for some subjects while decreasing the number required for others. Some retraining of secondary teachers may therefore be necessary to provide for the change in subject mix.
The numbers of teachers required to teach Welsh as a language will increase as a result of the introduction of the national curriculum. The future numbers are currently being discussed with LEAs. The results of these discussions will enable us to judge the scale and shape of the retraining and recruitment programmes for the years ahead.
Welsh language specialists tend to be concentrated in the secondary sector. Current information on the number of Welsh language teachers employed by LEAs in Wales will not be available until the results of the 1989 secondary school staffing survey are to hand later this year. There are 358 students currently training as Welsh-medium teachers at initial teacher training institutions in Wales.