Essential Skills Wales consultation

Last year, we announced our intention to reform three subject areas after an in-depth review of the Essential Skills Wales qualifications during which we carried out extensive research and spoke to learners, providers and employers.

Since then, we’ve continued to engage with a range of stakeholders and have now published our report Shaping the Future of Essential Skills Wales: Consultation on the Design Requirements for new Essential Skills Wales Qualifications.

On 13 November 2025 we also launched an online survey to gain important feedback on our proposals. This will close on 5 February 2026.

We are consulting on proposals related to the: 

• purpose and aims of the qualifications
• content (knowledge and skills)
• assessment
• qualification titles 

We are intending to remove Essential Skills Wales qualifications at level 3 in all subjects and at Entry 1 and 2 in digital literacy. For each subject area, we ask a question about the impacts of removing these qualifications.

On 13 November 2025, we launched our Essential Skills Wales consultation by publishing proposals   to reform the three subject areas. This included impact assessments for each option. The consultation document  also details the stakeholders we have engaged with since the publication of our review findings in September 2024.

The report of the in-depth review was published on 18 September 2024. During the two-year review, the Qualifications Wales team carried out extensive research and spoke to learners, providers, and employers – and the majority wanted reform. They gave feedback about the currency and manageability of the qualifications and their assessments. 

Read it here.

We will analyse the responses and publish a report summarising the findings alongside our decisions during the summer term 2026. Alongside these reports we will publish the final versions of the approval criteria for the reformed suite of Essential Skills Wales qualifications which awarding bodies will use to develop the qualifications.  

We aim to approve the awarding bodies qualification specifications and sample assessment materials by September 2027. The new qualifications will be taught from September 2028.