First Minister Mark Drakeford has said he does not want all children educated through the medium of Welsh in future. Mr Drakeford said making the language compulsory would alienate people who are sympathetic to the language and set it back.
Language campaigners criticised the First Minister, saying his attitude would mean the majority of young people continue to leave school unable to speak Welsh with confidence.
Mr Drakeford, a Welsh speaker, was responding in the Senedd on Wednesday, December 7, after the 2021 Census found the number of Welsh speakers had fallen by around 24,000 over the last decade. He said that making all schools Welsh medium was not the answer to increase the number of people speaking the language in Wales.
