Assembly Government, 2009c). Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
statistics for 2007/2008 show that, of those students in Welsh higher educa-
tion institutions who stated that they were fluent Welsh speakers, only 43%
were studying all or part of their course through the medium of Welsh
(Centre for Welsh-Medium Higher Education, 2009; Welsh Assembly
Government, 2009b).
Commenting on this unfavourable situation, Williams (2009) concludes
that
analysis of the growth in the number of school pupils in Wales receiving
all or part of their education in Welsh, together with the numbers being
examined through Welsh at higher levels of school, indicates that there
is substantial scope for expansion of the numbers studying all or part of
their course in HE through the Welsh language. In many disciplines
there is little or no provision through the Welsh medium in HE any-
where in Wales and many students in the 14-19 sector have indicated
that they would wish to study bilingually if courses were available.
(Williams, 2009: 4.7)April 2010 saw the publication of the Welsh Assembly Government’s
Welsh-medium Education Strategy (Welsh Assembly Government, 2010) out-
lining its first ever national strategic direction for developing Welsh-medium
education and training in all sectors and age ranges. This long-term strategy
builds on the overview and vision outlined in Iaith Pawb, the Welsh Assembly
Government’s national action plan for a bilingual Wales (Welsh Assembly
Government, 2003) by focusing on developing Welsh-medium education and
training for the future. It specifically emphasises the need for ‘effective pro-
gression into, and further development of, Welsh-medium course options in
higher education... [with] proactive planning on the basis of improving
access to Welsh-medium and bilingual provision’ (Welsh Assembly
Government, 2010: 14).
Bilingual Teaching and Learning in Welsh
Higher Education
At school level, the term ‘bilingual provision’ encompasses a diverse
range of teaching and learning settings which include varying amounts of
Welsh and English as mediums of delivery (Welsh Assembly Government,
2007; see also Chapter 7). This can include schools where a large proportion
of the curriculum is delivered through the medium of Welsh, those where
there are two streams – Welsh-medium and English-medium – taught sepa-
rately (sometimes called ‘dual stream’ schools), and those where only a few
Bilingualism in Higher Education 173