Peter Fox MS recently aired his concerns following Coleg Gwent’s decision to pull from its Usk campus vitally important agricultural and environmental courses , including forestry, to pupils across Wales.
Today in Plenary, Mr Fox called on the Welsh Government to implement incentives to safe-guard these vital courses which will play a significant part in Wales needing to achieve its net-zero carbon target in addition to other environmental targets.
He said:
“Climate change is, without doubt, one of the biggest threats facing the world in the 21st century, and that is why agricultural and environmental courses – such as forestry – are more important than ever for inculcating the next generation with the necessary skills to tackle this crisis and achieve other environmental targets.
“Wales has already announced an ambitious target of achieving net-zero carbon by 2050, as well as setting other environmental targets including increased planting of trees and local food production, but we need people equipped with the necessary skills to achieve these ambitious goals.
“Thus environmental and agricultural courses are pivotal to enable us to feed our nation, manage our forestry, biodiversity and wider environment.
“It is unacceptable that many young people currently have no choice but to attend other colleges outside of Wales to gain these crucial skills. We now need the Welsh Government to do all it can to make sure vital courses are provided across all of Wales, in addition to working with further education providers, such as Coleg Gwent, to retain and importantly market these courses.”
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