Introduction

Wales is a bilingual nation and as an organisation we are proud to support Welsh Government’s Cymraeg 2050 ambition, to achieve a millions Welsh speakers. To ensure that learners in Wales can take qualifications in the language of their choice, we are committed to increasing the range and availability of Welsh-medium qualifications.

Choice for All

With the growth of Welsh-medium education, the number of children and young people able to speak Welsh is projected to grow to 70% by 2050.

Our Choice for All strategy clearly sets out our commitment to work with awarding bodies and other partners to increase the availability of Welsh-medium qualifications.

This strategy sets out four strategic areas of focus:

Welsh-medium availability on our QiW database

As part of our commitment to promoting and facilitating the use of Cymraeg, we require awarding bodies to provide information on the availability of qualifications, whether this is partially or fully in Welsh. This information is available on our QiW database.

From 1 September 2024, we will require awarding bodies to provide further information on the materials available in Welsh to learners, where a qualification is registered on QiW as being partially available in Welsh. This will help centres better understand what aspects of a qualification are available in Welsh before registering learners.

Search QiW database

Targeted Welsh-medium work

A core part of our Choice for All strategy is our targeted work to increase the availability of Welsh-medium vocational qualifications for post-16 learners. Through this work, we have the opportunity to create a positive impact on widening learner choice.

In response to Welsh Government’s independent review of vocational qualifications in Wales, we have published a progress report on our approach to increase the availability of Welsh-medium vocational qualifications.

We also set out our future plans as we head towards publishing our new Cymraeg strategy to replace Choice for All in 2025.

Cynnig Cymraeg - the active offer

As part of our work to strengthen support for awarding bodies and improve the information available to learners, schools, and colleges on the availability of Welsh-medium qualifications, we have produced an interactive resource pack to support all awarding bodies to provide Cynnig Cymraeg - an active Welsh medium offer in  a proactive way.

The pack encourages awarding bodies to provide specific information to learners about Welsh-medium and bilingual qualifications, and to actively promote and advertise Welsh-medium qualifications to learners in Wales.

Welsh language support grant

We also support awarding bodies by offering grants to help them increase the availability of Welsh-medium qualifications and assessment.

Recognised awarding bodies can apply to us for financial support to help with the cost of making regulated qualifications available to learners through the medium of Welsh.

Welsh-speaking assessors

We also recognise that appointing and training high-quality Welsh-speaking assessors is key to ensuring valid and reliable qualifications can be awarded to Welsh-medium learners.

This is why we are supporting the Federation of Awarding Bodies (FAB) with their work to create a database of Welsh-speaking assessors.

If you’re a practitioner with confident Cymraeg skills and an interest in undertaking a paid role as a Welsh-speaking assessor, you can join the database.

If you’re an awarding body looking to appoint Welsh-speaking assessors to roles within your organisation, you can get in touch with FAB.

Regulatory requirements

Condition D9 of our Standard Conditions of Recognition outlines our Conditions and requirements on recognised awarding bodies regarding Welsh-medium qualifications. 

In particular, we will require awarding bodies to: 

  • make Approved qualifications available in Welsh 
  • make Designated qualifications available to pre-16 learners available in Welsh, in accordance with our Designation Policy, from September 2027 (or any date specified by us)  
  • publish a policy statement setting out the extent to which they make qualifications available in Welsh 
  • promote the availability of any Welsh-medium qualifications they offer and facilitate access to these qualifications.

To support compliance with these regulatory requirements, we have published Guidance for awarding bodies on Condition D9: Welsh-medium qualifications.

 

 

Advisory groups

To support our work in relation to Cymraeg and Welsh-medium qualifications, we regularly engage with our Cymraeg Stakeholder Group. The purpose of this group is to act as a ‘critical friend’, by providing advice and guidance on our work. We also share relevant updates with this group and seek their feedback where appropriate.

We also hold our Awarding Body Welsh Language Support Group. The purpose of this group is to support awarding bodies with the development, delivery and award of Welsh-medium and bilingual qualifications and assessment.

If you are an awarding body interested in joining, please contact: welshsupportgroup@qualifications.wales