5. What evaluation has the Welsh Government undertaken of the initial teacher education priority subject incentive scheme? OQ61195

Thank you for the question. 

Several research reports into attracting graduates into teaching, including the use of incentives, have been published since 2019. Preliminary work to further evaluate the priority subject incentive scheme specifically is currently under way.

Thank you. We know that there are great problems in terms of recruitment and retaining teachers across the whole of Wales. Indeed, the electoral messages of your own party do recognise that this crisis has happened under your leadership, and this is also reflected in one of your six electoral commitments. And there has been no shortage of announcements in recent years by the Welsh Government encouraging young people to think about a career as a teacher or classroom assistant, but we do know whether these campaigns have been successful?

Can you tell me, First Minister, whether the initial teacher education incentive scheme for priority subjects is working, and how do you know this, because I was quite shocked recently to learn from the Cabinet Secretary for Education that the Welsh Government has no data to determine if the recipients of the incentive before 2022-23 are still teaching in Wales, are teaching somewhere else, or not teaching at all? Now, this is a scheme that's been running, in one way or another, for over a decade, with millions of pounds spent on it, and we don't know if any of its previous recipients are still in teaching positions. Now, that I find quite astounding. So, can you confirm, First Minister, that this astonishing oversight will be corrected, and explain to me how?

I think there are a couple of different things, to try to address the Member's questions and points directly. There's the point about how you link data for when people go into the workforce and how you can track where they are, and how you do that successfully, and understand where they've undertaken an incentive. Indeed, incentives for teacher training have been agreed on a cross-party basis during most of the life of devolution, a recognition that you need to have incentives to bring people into the teacher workforce, and then specifically across a range of subjects. So, that's why we're undertaking an evaluation to understand more deliberately, after a period of time of incentives, how successful it has been. We also need to understand without those incentives, where would we have been with the workforce that we need to know what all of us want to see for children and young people.

So, that's why the research is important, but I would say that in the subjects that we have—a range of sciences, design and technology, ICT, maths, modern foreign languages, physics, Welsh and any of those subjects through the medium of Welsh—we know that we need more workforce. It's a challenge for both English-medium education and, indeed, Welsh-medium education for the ambitions that we share. Now, to get there, you've got to understand how you get teachers and then keep them. It's partly about the initial stage about incentives, I think. It's also partly about the environment within the classroom. It's also partly about how they're then supported and the reforms that we are undertaking on changing our curriculum. Lots of teachers positively want to come to Wales because of the journey we're on, and it needs to work to make sure that young people get the best start in life through the first 1,000 days, and into education.

So, yes, we will look at the research and the evidence that is there. The crucial part is: how do we get the workforce we need to understand how we make clear that being a teacher is a fantastic career to make a big difference for the community you live in and you serve, and the country, and it can be a hugely rewarding profession for individuals as well? Sadly, lots of parts of the teaching profession have been attacked on a regular basis by different actors, and that has turned some people—[Inaudible.]—wanting to be teachers through and immediately after the pandemic. That's levelling off a bit, so we need to understand what more we can do to get the high-quality teachers that we need, and each and every one of our constituents and their families want to see in Welsh education. 

The First Minister has been talking a lot about the last 14 years. Well, in the last 14 years in England, we've seen massive growth in the education sector in England, thanks to Conservative-led reforms that have delivered the best Programme for International Student Assessment results anywhere in the UK consistently. Meanwhile, the Welsh Labour Government refuses to follow suit, presiding over the worst education scores anywhere in the UK and getting worse.

Now, the initial teacher education priority subject incentive scheme, as the First Minister outlined, includes physics as a profession that can be taught via it. The Welsh Government targeted the recruitment of 61 students to complete the ITE programme for 2023-24. Do you want to know how many did qualify in 2023-24? Three. Is it not, First Minister, one lesson that we can learn from Wales and the Welsh Labour Government that you just can't trust Labour when it comes to education? 

Actually, what the Member points out is that the incentives are part of the answer, but not the whole answer, and if you want a serious debate about how we get the workforce we need, that contribution doesn't get you to where you need to be. You need to understand what we need to do to make teaching an attractive profession for people to want to study it, and then to stay in it and want to carry on delivering. Now, I went to university with a range of people who are now teachers; I met some of them at the Urdd Eisteddfod, actually—the Aber mafia is everywhere, as the Presiding Officer knows—but to understand why they stayed in Welsh education and what makes a difference, that's part of the work we need to do, as well as a commitment to want to raise standards with and for children and young people.

Part of it is it the environment in which they work in as well, and, of course, we have now seen, on a sustained basis, the largest school and college building programme for new facilities since the 1960s. I'm very proud of what Welsh Labour has done to invest in facilities; we'll carry on working together with the profession, and others, to make clear that teaching is an attractive profession. You can undertake a hugely rewarding and valuable career and make a big difference to communities that you live in. And that is the journey we are on, and I make no apologies for wanting to be positive about the workforce needs we have and how we want to go about meeting them for the future of the country.