Will the Minister make a statement on the current monopoly the WJEC has on the examinations and curriculums in our secondary schools and sixth form colleges, and state whether she is prepared to support schools who would like to consider using other examination boards?
The Welsh Ministers' functions relating to the regulation of qualifications and the qualifications system in Wales were repealed in September 2015 with the establishment of Qualifications Wales as the independent regulator.
The programme of reforming GCSEs, AS and A Levels has transferred from the Welsh Government to Qualifications Wales. All awarding bodies that offer general qualifications were invited to develop new and revised specifications for teaching in Wales from September 2015, 2016 and 2017; only the WJEC chose to take forward this programme of work. Consequently, only the WJEC is developing the new and revised general qualifications being introduced in Wales; only these qualifications will be available to the maintained sector in the subjects being revised. For all other subjects, secondary schools and colleges will be free to choose from a range of specifications provided by any of the awarding bodies that offer general qualifications.