Welsh a waste, focus on maths and science

I FULLY support the teaching of Welsh to those who wish to learn the language, but haven’t things gone a little over the top when it is forced on every pupil, irrespective of their desire to learn it?

When I entered grammar school my Welsh-speaking mother chose French for me. She said it would be more useful in the big wide world. While I am sorry that I was taught the French, but not the Welsh national anthem in school, I ask myself, “have I missed very much?” Other languages I was taught were Latin – of great use in the origin of words – and German. Spending time with families in France and Germany, I found the students I stayed with were dedicated to improving their English.

So what disadvantages do I look back on because I am not fluent in Welsh? I can honestly say, none. My monoglot cousins in Cardiganshire soon appreciated, as the world got smaller, and people moved around a lot more, that they needed to learn English, while the converse was not the case for me. It is a fact that English is used in more countries of the world than any other language. Having travelled in scores of countries worldwide I am well aware that with the English language and US dollars one can travel almost anywhere in the world. Have I ever been sorry while abroad that I did not have Welsh? Yes, in Patagonia. We had a lovely Welsh tea served to us by a lady who spoke Welsh and Spanish but no English. Hanging on the wall behind us was a picture of Castell Coch.

There is a price that our young people are paying for having Welsh forced upon them. Other subjects are suffering because there are only 25 hours in the standard school week. One subject that has suffered dreadfully is mathematics. Half the students I went through school with entered grammar school at 10 and sat O-levels at 14. At A-level there were 12 in the class studying Pure Maths and Applied Maths as separate subjects, and another eight in the class studying Pure and Applied Maths as a single subject. Four boys, that year, went up to Oxbridge at a time when I am reliably informed that the number of students at Oxbridge was a third of the number there today.

What has happened to mathematics and science subjects since those far-off days? In passing it is also indisputable that we sat the exams two years earlier than students today, and that the standard in these subjects is lower now than it was then – should you doubt this, just compare the papers from those times with today.

The recent BBC series Icons declared, by popular vote, mathematician Alan Turing as the top icon of the 20th century. Surely some of the enormous sums spent on teaching Welsh to pupils who will never use it; on putting up bilingual signs everywhere and producing thousands of tons of paper that is immediately binned, would be better spent in raising the standard of education, particularly in science subjects? It is only a brilliant mathematician/scientist who is going to save humanity from its headlong gallop to total destruction.