What Is Education?

Guest Lecture: Session 1
Education: The Welsh Scene. 9/1/12

In our first session of our Guest Lecture sessions was very interesting. Basically giving us a rough educational background of Wales. Giving us useful facts such as the current Minister of Education in Wales is, Leighton Andrews and his predecessor is Jane Davidson. Being a fluent Welsh speaker, it surprised me to learn that according to our guest lecturer that only 20% of Primary Schools and 15% of Secondary schools use  Welsh as a main language, and also, that there was a deficiency of Welsh headteachers that have the NPQH qualification, which surprised me as I thought the Welsh Language in schools and in general was becoming more popular.

PISA 2006
The Lecturer then followed by telling us about the PISA scheme. I learnt that the PISA is a form of tests that is carried over several countries to compare their success of Education. We were told that the National Assembly of Wales said that the tests have done well, but there needs to be a few changes as the results were uneven. We then were taught to consider that Wales, like many other countries, don't have League Tables, but the Welsh Curriculum are aiming to improve their curriculum and other issues to better learning for pupils.

Also quickly mentioning the PLC's which is a community which brings teachers together to concentrate on a particular challenge. This could be a positive affect on the curriculum.