Devolved responsibility? -SWEP

Well, there you have it! It is more Welsh language for the English medium schools. Welsh will no longer be considered a second language (what in the blue blazes is it, it is the first language of Wales now?) in English medium schools, with a greater opportunity to use the Welsh language. The Principality is going barmy, the Welsh ‘Government’ (they’re interpretation!), is imposing new restrictions on schools – well, if I had young children, I would be off out of Wales for good.

It is all in the course of ‘independence’ no doubt, what crazy brain thought this one up, the mind boggles doesn’t it?

So, our Welsh administration in its profound wisdom, is choosing to stay with the ‘module’ based GCSE’s (that is when they are not cancelling exams due the Covid-19), albeit that the rest of the country is going for a more rigorous and challenging exam-based system (long overdue in my view).

I despair.

Education in Wales is now to be used as a political Action Man for those who seek a nationalist Welsh Nirvana, or indeed a Welsh War of the Roses with those English ‘robber barons’ rampaging along the Marches.

To hell with our young. To hell with the future.

The Welsh administration, in an exercise of supreme stupidity, short-sighted and stunted intellectual ineptness, has now chosen to ignore the fact, that Wales is bottom of European league tables for literacy, is not far short of the same in Higher Education International league tables, is rapidly falling behind England and Scotland in all league tales, English University numbers of Welsh students are increasing, while Welsh students are substantially decreasing at Welsh Universities, the list goes on and on.

And what is our OK Corral Welsh ‘Government’ doing? Lumping on more of the same. It is plain unbelievable!

They are cheating Welsh children on a grand scale, they are promoting failure and, mediocrity and neutralizing ambition.

An education is the most wonderful gift any parent can ever give to their child. The Welsh administration is now seeking to award Welsh students a second-class qualification, in a first- class graduate world – like the Welsh Baccalaureate for example, not recognised by most Universities.

It is condemning our students to a qualification that will be treated by the rest of the world, with sniggers of superior delight and a ‘No Hope’ label at interview time.

Our young deserve better than this, the Welsh liberal educationalists and know-all politicos are not the future (and just look what they’ve done for it, so far?) our young are, and what is happening here is nothing less than the commission of a slippery, confidence trick upon those who wish to excel, those who wish to succeed and those who just plain want to get on.

NB There was a time when the Welsh Joint Education Committee was the toughest and most highly respected examining board in the land. Look at it now.

Welsh nationalists, God forbid!!! – SWEP

Devolution has done nothing but help to raise the nationalist flag and create chaos throughout Wales. It’s over 20 years now, since the Welsh Assembly has strutted its stuff, and what do we have to show for it? A tin-pot ‘Assembly’ of no hopers. A ‘government’ (that is what it calls itself now) ruling three million citizens out of a population of sixty-five million. It is mind boggling and a waste of space.

A debt-ridden Health Service that would make a Provi debt collector turn tail, an economy on the brink of melt down and not to mention the Covid-19 debacle, and so dependent on the tax-payer that even AM’s are giving up their haute cuisine lunches in Cardiff Bay, and buying burgers from McDonald’s instead (as if, but you get my point), and last but not least an education system that is having trouble competing with the Czech Republic – and the Czechs really are skint! The Welsh publishing industry? Is a subsided excuse for literary genius. The tax-payer is paying for non-sensical manuscripts!

To cap it all, there are some Welsh Local Authorities who are now insisting that job candidate’s speak and be able to write ‘High’ Welsh at interviews – not only this, we also have the recent incident of a school pupil being refused the use of a lavatory because she refrained, when asking, to use the Welsh language!

In any modern and civilised democracy, everyone has an inalienable human right to speak whatever language they like and quite right too, but is it a good idea to start insisting that people speak Welsh? Surely, the way forward is persuasion and consensus, not the whip of the Statue Book or the coercive will of a minority agenda?

I must argue, that such a condition of Welsh employment will merely put off talent coming to Wales to work, the last thing we need – Covid-19 notwithstanding, you can bet the Welsh administration will be asking for money on this economic disaster. Devolution?

It is recognised that Wales is already suffering from a brain drain (note, that all these Welsh celebrities are always ‘returning’ for a quick TV programme, but they don’t hang about do they?), a chronic lack of  private-sector investment and competitiveness and a generation of school leavers who only want to work in the public sector.

Love the Welsh language, speak and sing it at will but please, let’s not allow Wales and its future to be further disadvantaged by unrealistic Welsh language policies that in the long run, serve only to divide, separate and cause resentment. And a million Welsh speakers by 2050? Someone is having a laugh at this outrageous tip of hyperbole!

The Welsh language has come a long way since 1997, and those who have fought and struggled for its survival and preservation are to be congratulated and admired. But the nation is in crisis, and surely now must be a time for common sense and pragmatism.

For all Welsh people, be they Welsh speakers or not.

Devolution? Let’s get out of it and be ruled by a true UK Government.