«Education and

religion in Wales»
Made by:
Selina Daria
 Department for Education and Skills
Minister for Education and the Welsh Jeremy Miles
Language

General details
Primary languages English and Welsh
System type National
Compulsory education 1880
Devolution 1999
Literacy (2003)
Total 99%

Education in Male 99%

Wales Female 99%

 History: Pre-devolution
• At the start of the 19th century, schooling in England and Wales
was provided on a haphazard basis by private business, charity
and the church. This system saw many children from less wealthy
families, in particular, receive a low quality of education and in
1800 around half of people were illiterate. From the early 1800s
onwards the state increasingly provided financing for education.
During the mid 1800s a report into unrest in Wales recommended
that use of the Welsh language be cut back in schools. This led to
the practice of the Welsh Not which involved children being
beaten and stigmatised for speaking Welsh in school. This practice
was widespread in some Welsh counties in the middle of the 19th
century, though it was never official government policy and the
schools where it took place were voluntary at that time, so acted
with the endorsement of parents. In 1870 the Elementary
Education Act legislated for the creation of a system of state
funded schools. Ten years later education became compulsory for
five- to ten-year-old children and all school fees at elementary
schools were abolished eleven years after that.
 History: Devolution Era
• Following the victory of the Labour party in the 1997 general
election, the new government enacted its policy of giving
significant governing powers to elected bodies based in
Scotland and Wales.
• Since devolution, education policy in the four constituent
countries of the UK has diverged: for example, England has
pursued reforms based on diversity of school types and
parental choice; Wales (and Scotland) remain more committed
to the concept of the community-based comprehensive
school. Systems of governance and regulation – the
arrangements for planning, funding, quality-assuring and
regulating learning, and for its local administration – are
becoming increasingly differentiated across the four home
countries.
 History: Curriculum changes
• Changes in the years immediately following devolution
included compulsory study of the Welsh language for students
up to the age of 16 and the removal of statutory testing for
children in the middle years of their schooling.
• The Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Act 2021 was passed
in 2021, which is an act for new curriculum requirements for
all learners aged 3 to 16 in maintained or funded non-
maintained nursery education. Within a basic framework of
goals and learning areas, it give schools freedom to develop
their own curriculum to suit the needs of their pupils. Other
changes include a greater emphasis on the history of Wales and
ethnic minority groups which reports by Estyn in previous
years suggested had often been poor along with the removal of
parents right to take their children out of sex education classes.
The structure of the Welsh educational system

• Early years care and education

From the start of the January, April or September (whichever comes
soonest) following a child's third birthday they become eligible for a
minimum of ten hours a week in publicly-funded nursery education,
though these hours can also be provided through a playgroup or
childminder. Nursery lessons are focused on developing children's
abilities in a variety of areas such as creativity, communication and
general knowledge however, at this age, learning to read and write is not
yet considered a priority.
• Compulsory schooling
Education is compulsory beginning with the term following the child's
fifth birthday but may take place at either home or school. Most parents
choosing to educate through school-based provision, however, enrol
their children in the reception year in September of that school year,
with most children thus beginning school at age four or four and a half.
 The structure of the Welsh
educational system
• Primary education
In 2008 a unique new curriculum – the Foundation phase – was rolled
out to all schools in Wales. It began for 3- to 4-year-olds and by 2011
was in place for 3- to 7-year-olds. It is based on experiential learning,
in small groups, with a teacher ratio of 1:8 for the youngest ages.
• Secondary education
Pupils in secondary school take part in the compulsory GCSE and the
non-compulsory A-level or BTEC qualifications at ages 15/16 and
17/18 respectively. Since 2007 the Welsh Baccalaureate Qualification
has also been available as an option although it was ungraded until
2014. Wales has often performed poorly in PISA results, which
compare the academic abilities of adolescents around the world. The
2018 tests saw Wales' results improving but remaining the weakest of
the four education systems of the UK in all subjects.
 The structure of the Welsh
educational system
• Further education
Further education (FE) includes full- and part-time learning for
people over compulsory school age, excluding higher education.
Young people often enrol in FE as an alternative to staying at
school after the age of 16. FE and publicly funded training in Wales
is provided by 15 FE institutions in 2014/15 and a range of public,
private and voluntary sector training providers, such as the
Workers' Educational Association. Colleges vary in size and
mission, and include general FE, tertiary and specialist institutions,
including one Roman Catholic Sixth Form College and a residential
adult education college. Many colleges offer leisure learning and
training programmes designed to meet the needs of business. In
2014/15 there were 263,315 FE students in Wales spanning the
entire availability of FE at multiple placements, including FE, HE
(higher education), LA (local authority) Community, and work-
based learning.
 Religion in Wales
• Christianity is the largest religion in Wales. Wales has a strong
tradition of nonconformism, particularly Methodism. Until 1920 the
established church was the Church of England, but from 1920 the
disestablished Church in Wales, still Anglican, was self-governing.
• Most adherents to organised religion in Wales follow one of the
Christian denominations such as the Presbyterian Church of Wales,
Baptist and Methodist churches, the Church in Wales, Catholicism
or Eastern Orthodoxy. Other religions Welsh people may be
affiliated with include Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam,
Sikhism and Druidism, with most non-Christian Welsh people found
in the large cities of Cardiff and Swansea. Some modern surveys
have suggested that most Welsh people do not identify with any
religion, and record significantly less religious feeling in Wales than
in other parts of the UK.
• Reflecting Wales' history of freethinking, nonconformism, and
religious pluralism, the devolved parliament and government in
Wales are distinctively secular, in contrast with the Westminster
parliament.
 Present-day Catholic
Christianity
• Catholics are served by the Ecclesiastical Province of Cardiff,
which exists out of the Archdiocese of Cardiff, the Diocese of
Menevia and the Diocese of Wrexham. The bishops of these
dioceses are part of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of
England and Wales. In total, the three dioceses counted 209,451
Catholics on a population of 3,112,451 inhabitants, equalling to
a percentage of 6,7% Catholics. The three dioceses have 172
priests and 34 permanent deacons, 75 male religious and 267
female religious, and a total of 154 parishes as of 2016 (2017
for the diocese of Wrexham). However, the province is not
completely equal to Wales, as the Archdiocese of Cardiff also
covers Herefordshire, in England.
 Islam and Judaism

• The largest non-Christian faith in Wales is Islam, with about 46,000

adherents in 2011. Most Muslims live in Cardiff (23,656 in 2011, 6.8%
of the population), but there are also significant numbers in Newport
(6,859 in 2011) and Swansea (5,415 in 2011).
• There has been a Somali and Yemeni Islamic community in Cardiff
since the mid-1800s, founded by seafarers to Cardiff Docks.
• Judaism has quite a long history in Wales, with a Jewish community
recorded in Swansea from about 1730. In August 1911, in a period of
public disorder and industrial disputes, Jewish shops across the South
Wales coalfield were damaged by mobs. Since that time the Jewish
population of that area, which reached a peak of 4,000–5,000 in 1913,
has declined. In 2011 there were a total of 2,064 Jewish adherents in
Wales, including 802 in Cardiff.