Pilot scheme (From Penarth Times)

Pilot scheme

REGARDING 'AM's Switch' in last week's Penarth Times letters page. Gareth ap-Sion's 'surprise' at my position on the recently announced pilot of a new Welsh baccalaureate scheme is misplaced.

My initial concerns were in response to the scheme proposed by the Institute of Welsh Affairs and, on the basis of a 30 minute presentation to the Assembly's education committee, the Nationalists wanted to go ahead with a £1m pilot project.

In contrast to the IWA model, the proposals of the Labour-led Assembly Government maintain the integrity of the existing A/AS levels and vocational qualifications, whilst providing 'added value' to give young people in Wales a dynamic and innovative qualification.

It is important that young people in Wales can achieve in a flexible and dynamic qualifications structure with a distinctive Welsh dimension, but which broadens their understanding of Wales's place as part of the UK, Europe and the World.

The current scheme offers this - although we will have to wait for the result of the pilots before deciding whether to adopt the model across Wales, and whether any additional changes would have to be made.

It will be an outward-looking, internationalist qualification, hardly in line with Plaid Cymru's narrow-minded nationalist vision of an independent Wales, looking backward and inward!

Lorraine Barrett Assembly Member for Cardiff South and Penarth