Teachers (Welsh Language) (Hansard, 27 June 1990)

§ Sir Wyn Roberts

Estimates of the number of teachers required to deliver the national curriculum for Welsh are being prepared in the light of discussions with local education authorities, and using recent information on pupil numbers. It is clear that additional teachers of Welsh will be required as the national curriculum is introduced.

The need for additional teachers will be met through a mix of initial teacher training—ITT—and in-service training. With regard to ITT we have issued new criteria for the training of primary teachers which will require all initial teacher training institutions in Wales to provide opportunities for students to learn Welsh and improve their Welsh language skills while they are training; added Welsh to the list of secondary shortage subjects for which a bursary of £1,500 will be available in initial teacher training; and introduced the Welsh-medium supplement which could produce teachers capable of teaching Welsh in English medium primary schools if students fail to gain posts in Welsh medium schools.

In order to take advantage of the skills available within the existing teaching force we have provided funding to enable courses to be developed for serving primary and secondary teachers to prepare them to teach Welsh as a second language; and provided additional funding for LEA in-service training for Welsh—£900,000 has been made available this year.

The teaching as a career unit was established to promote teaching as a career. Its activity in Wales is sharply focused on the need to recruit additional propsective teachers of Welsh and Welsh-medium teachers. A total of £116,000 has been made available through education support grants for LEAs in Wales to support the development of measures to increase the recruitment of teachers in the shortage subjects including Welsh.