Ken Jones

Due to changes to the 'What is Education? Policy and Practise' section of our course, we were told that our assignment for this module would be based on different aspects of education taught by guest lecturers.

The first lecture we had was with Ken Jones, Dean of faculty of Humanities at the University. He talked about the role of the Government in Education and some of the statistical facts about our Education in Wales. In terms of geography of the country, he said that 50% of the population live in South and South East Wales. He also mentioned that there are small rural schools in the North and South West of the country. He stated that 20% of primary pupils and 15% of secondary pupils have welsh as sole or main medium of istruction, which ultimately seems to be quite low. He also mentioned that the number of pupils in local authority maintaned schools has decreased year on year.

Ken Jones talked about the 2006 Pisa results. He said the OECD said they wanted to compare how different countries are doing in terms of education, so they had children sit tests so that they could gather this information. It was found that Wales was not doing as well as expected.
In 2008 came the School Effectiveness Framework (SEF) from the Welsh Government (2008). This was introduced to improve children and young people's learning and well-being throughout Wales.

The 2010 PISA results indicated the development between 2006-2009. In terms of reading in Wales, it had a decline of -5, maths -12 and science -9, indicating below average results from other countries. 

The New minister (Leighton Andrews), spoke in February 2011, highlighting that 'Teaching makes a difference' and is focusing on trying to make the educational situation better for in Wales.