I am a graduate, who is fluent in Welsh and English, and unable to find work in Wales. I don’t understand the point you are attempting to make.

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Summarising your challenge of legal principle here:

1. “It is my human right to have my children educated in the language of my choice” (presumably you would concede, as I would, that a small practical condition be put on this such as: “within a reasonable distance and at a reasonable cost, and as long as it is, say, an official language of the UK with, say reasonable levels of parental demand?)

2. “It is my human right to occupy a role of work even if I cannot speak the language that has been identified as being essential for that role” (because any other role demanding language competence other than ‘essential’ is already illegal and you can challenge in a court of law now)

On principle number 1. Good luck with that one. I’d support you. Unfortunately, it seems, local budgetary limitations and perhaps even local ideological prejudices sometimes prevent some local authorities acting in this enlightened way. Incidentally, parents all across Wales wanting to give their children a Welsh-speaking education will applaud you if you can get that human right established in Welsh, British or European law. They’ve been campaigning for it for nearly 60 years to no avail (parents in Wales have no legal right for their children to receive a Welsh-medium education and local authorities have no obligation to provide a prescribed level of Welsh-medium education, and only to have a ‘plan’ and undertake periodical ‘demand assessments’). Come on board, maybe we can make common cause?

On 2. Good luck with that one as well. I’d love to support you from a strictly self-interested perspective. I’d love to have the right to have a job even if I didn’t fullfil one of the core requirements. Come to think of it, I’d love to be doctor or dentist but unfortunately I haven’t been to medical school. So I think you will struggle with that one. In the meantime, if you see a ‘Welsh-essential’ job that you’d be interested in applying for but suspect is unjustifiably categorised as such, challenge them, take them to court, let the law test its validity. The law is there. And I’d support you if you were proven to be right.

Regarding your assessment of the relative performance of Welsh- and English-medium eduction, I’m not really in a position to comment. You’ve provided a lot of statitics there and, who knows, you may have a case. Why not forward your evidence to the leader of the Official Opposition in the Assembly? Or to the press? I’m sure they would be delighted to expose such a discrepancy in performance and hold the Welsh Government minister to account. The Opposition may support Welsh-medium education in principle but they’d be damned interested to know if it were under-performing as a result of political failure. Or maybe bring a private case of negligence against the local authority or Welsh Government? After all, it’s not in any of our interests that a child’s education is compromised just because of the language they’re taught in, is it?

Good luck anyway. In principle, you have my full support on these three issues, if indeed you are proven to be right.

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Having read few comments from people who disagree with my viewpoint I have noticed a distinct lack of fact and in the place of factual absence use of dismissive prejudice seems to be OK.

It’s not OK and whilst I do understand their concerns in trying to keep the lid down and stifle debate it’s no longer possible to avoid difficult facts and to keep demise of Wales out of public domain.

We all know that Welsh nationalists have huge vested interests in protecting the enormous perks and privileges extended to them via the WAG’s Road to Bilingual Wales but at what cost to Wales?

We must not ignore overwhelming facts that the Welsh education is in terminal decline as is its economy, infrastructure and so on and sanity appears to be absent or missing in Cardiff Bay and typical of a mindset that is displayed in David Lloyd Owen’s (DLO) comment on this thread.

For DLO’s information at this very moment which is some 10 years since the onslaught of Road to Bilingual Wales began there are in round figures 33,000 fifteen year old children in Welsh Education.

27,000 children chose English Medium education and 6,000 opted for Welsh medium education then I looked at the Welsh Government’s statistics and with no exception English Medium education outperformed Welsh Medium education in English language and Mathematics in all sectors which includes percentages of children with Free School Meals (FSM) provisions.

Interesting fact to note is that there are no Welsh medium schools with FSM above 20% whilst English medium schools contain up to 30+ percentage of children with FSM’s, just wonder why!?

Whilst on Welsh statistics the attainment grades for Welsh language (Grades A-C) in Welsh Medium schools are poor – 61% achieved A-C in schools with low FSM down to 42% getting the A-C grades in WM schools with FSM’s in category of 15 – 20%.

Whilst the figures I have just quoted are readily available to anyone who is interested and who can be bothered to request information from the Welsh Government these figures are not on their website and it appears the Welsh Government is concealing failure of Bilingual Nation strategy from the Welsh people.

In my humble opinion Leighton Andrew is a liability to Wales as much as the Bilingual Nation concept is and if Leighton has any integrity he should resign from the Welsh Government and yesterday would not be soon enough.

Wales needs inclusivity and freedom of choice extended to all people of Wales to live and work here irrespective if they are Welsh speakers or not and Welsh people must be free of state sponsored dogma.

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The reason is that the choice to adopt a Scottish-style model wasn’t included in the part of the 2006 Government of Wales Act which set up the referendum.

That would probably have needed another Act of Parliament, though some argue that it could have been achieved (and could still be achieved) by amending Schedule 7 to the 2006 Act through an Order in Council.

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Geraint, I am a graduate and a non-Welsh speaker. I am most certainly not persona non grata here, despite the fact that I live in Y Fro. I find this an open and accepting society. If it is so closed, then why did the local Plaid Cymru group as me to become Town Mayor a few years ago?

JRW is to be applauded for his honesty in stating his desire for ’1-language’.

Making sure that my children are enjoying a genuine Welsh-medium education (and yes, they are fluent in Welsh, as are most of the children from a monoglot English speaking background at Ysgol Y Preseli) and trying to be part of a nation’s civic society are part and parcel of living in another country and would be the norm in almost every other country in the world where one moves into a different language area.

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Belowlandsker: did you really vote yes?

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