Welsh crucial for education

THE Welsh Government’s decision to make the history of the BAME communities in Wales a compulsory part of our schools’ curriculum is to be applauded.

As the son of a refugee, I would urge our government to also include the history of Jews in Wales, and why not Irish, Italian and English, in our compulsory history curriculum.

This would go a long way to ensure that future generations are made aware of how necessary it is for us to embrace people of all backgrounds.

There is, however, a basic omission in the Welsh Government’s approach to the teaching of history, namely that no mandatory content is afforded to the 1,600-year history of Wales and the Welsh language.

It is this history that has ensured the continued existence of Wales as a distinct nation, and is the raison d’être of the existence of our Senedd.

Kirsty Williams, the last minister for education, told Golwg360 in January 2020, “There is no such thing as a Welsh history,” when trying to justify the freedom that teachers will be given when the new curriculum will be introduced in our schools.

Jeremy Miles, the present minister for education and the Welsh language, has now decided that history must have some content.

We are looking forward to a further decision that will ensure that our pupils know the long history of their country and language, which has been relegated to second class or sometimes negligible treatment in our education system.

A further point arises in our attempt to embrace newcomers to Wales. The Welsh Government rightly encourages local authorities to expand their provision to newcomers to Welsh medium education. In a bilingual country, all adult newcomers to Wales should also be given easy access to learn Welsh. Dr Gwennan Higham’s research into the need to redefine Welsh multi-ethnic citizenship, linked to her work in teaching Welsh to immigrants, points the way to an equal treatment of Welsh and English when welcoming newcomers.

Heini Gruffudd Abertawe