What is the reason that Wales is still the poorest region in UK?

What is education like in Wales?

How do they rank compared to other regions in GCSE, A level and university graduation rates?

59 per cent of entries in GCSE Mathematics achieved grade A*-C. For English Language the percentage was 63 per cent and for Welsh (First Language) it was 72 per cent.

That's all I can find on GCSEs I'm afraid

Where did you get that stats from? I thought the results would be a lot better considering how well funded the education and public services are.

For what year is that?

Any distribution between North, South, Mid Wales?

Wales can't survive on tourism and agriculture (it doesn't work for African nations and it won't work for us). Scotland is increasingly following the path of energy as its 'niche' in our increasingly connected world. England, obviously, has financial services. It's now Wales' turn to find its own place in the world, and build an economy on that.

Am actually in the midst of trying to compile a paper on this topic. Anyone else ever wonder why Wales is still the poorest region in UK?

This region was once the largest producer of coal, it is still one of the largest area for agriculture in the Kingdom, it is for the most part one of the best areas for tourism with some of the cleanest beaches in all of EU. Despite billions of pounds of EU money being invested, there is still relatively little to show. Even with the current Barnett Formula of allocation of finances, it still remains economically depressed.

During the boom times of the 90s and 00's much of UK had a housing boom with many homes going up as much as 250% even in areas that weren't exactly "rich" but somehow this boom largely bypassed Wales.

Birmingham, often thought as the area that is going through a decline due to the disappearance of heavy industries isn't really poor per say.

20 years ago, there were 2 Germanys, one was one of the richest countries in the world, the other was among the poorest countries in Europe, average wage of an East German was around a quarter of that of a West German, much of DDR was in industrial decline and for the most part there wasn't a working market economy. Today living standards in the former DDR is almost the same as someone from the East, very likely if you drive a new BMW 3 series, chances are it was assembled in a factory that is in Leipzig, a city of the former DDR, Leipzig has one of the best research universities in the world.

Wonder why Wales despite devolution has yet to show any real sign of improvement despite starting from a significantly better position.

59 per cent of entries in GCSE Mathematics achieved grade A*-C. For English Language the percentage was 63 per cent and for Welsh (First Language) it was 72 per cent.

That's all I can find on GCSEs I'm afraid

Perhaps it is because they are insisting on making all of their children waste time on a superfluous language which is, at this point, little above the level of a private code. If you learn Welsh, you can speak it to about 700,000 other people, almost all of whom speak English. If you learn Mandarin chinese, you can speak to 1.02bn people, most of whom won't speak english. Spanish will net you half a billion speakers, and french 128 million.

In terms of business, Mandarin gives you over 1000x the market, french over 180x

Maybe teaching welsh is not the way forward.

Also, the entire north of the country is as good as inaccessible to business as the mountains make haulage near impossible.

The Welsh language course which the majority of pupils do was not included in the statistics. Plus keep your stupid opinions to yourself, they're actually quite offensive. Most Welsh speakers live in the South, anyway, not the 'inaccessible' North. Welsh is a part of our country which is why it's taught, it's not the only language taught too. Most Welsh schools teach three languages (usually Welsh or English (depending on where they come from) and two foreign languages, compared to the average 2 in England).

My point is that the time used for teaching welsh could be used either for non-language subjects or for teaching a language more people speak, for example, Sicilian, Georgian, Norwegian, Balinese, Ewe, Lombard or Kazakh. The Welsh language should be available, but not compulsory, in schools, and the not inconsiderable amount of taxpayer's money wasted on bilingual signage and making other government resources bilingual needs to be cut. While I admire the determination to keep the language alive, it should not be coming at the expense of useful subjects, and definitely not at the expense of the taxpayer.

The point about how difficult it is to get to the north is separate and mostly based on actually going there on holiday. The mountains mean no dual carriageways, which makes haulage very difficult meaning manufacturing business is unlikely to set up there.

I disagree. The national language should be compulsory and all signs should be bilingual and this is coming from an Anglophone. I don't think Welsh speakers should have to feel marginalised in their own country because 'there are more useful subjects'.

Compulsory up to 14 is fine, but those do not wish to study GCSE Welsh shouldn't still have to attend Welsh lessons beyond that. Same goes for RS though. That time would be much better spent on another GCSE.

GCSE Welsh 2nd language short course (the one most people do) is a joke anyway

Then scrap it. If you added up all the unnecessary courses people are forced to do, between RS, this, General Studies A-levels and the rest, you could probably fit in an entire extra subject of the student's choice.

No, it should be taught more efficiently, not scrapped. It's only fair that all Welsh-speakers have to study English until the age of 16 and all English-speakers have to study Welsh until the age of 16. Also, it was only one hour a week, so hardly a huge amount of time.

The difference is that English is an essential language for living and working in the UK whereas Welsh is not. And if this, RS and some of the other things forced on students until 16 were dropped those hours could be used for another GCSE.

If you live in Wales, you should have to learn the national language in my opinion. You may disagree, but there you go.

There are two national languages. I have no problem with them both being compulsory up to age 14 but after that there should be an option to drop Welsh completely if you don't attend a Welsh language school because, as you said yourself, the GCSE short course is a joke. The time could be better spent elsewhere.

We'll just have to agree to disagree I guess.

Roads are pretty poor in Wales it takes a long time to go anywhere- so why would people set up business there if it is a long way from money centers such a Birmingham and London.