"We have to put more support into classrooms", First Minister on improving education in Wales
Eluned Morgan sets out plans to increase the number of teachers and improve education standards
The First Minister of Wales has been setting out some of the key issues she's looking to address.
Eluned Morgan's spoken to us in a sit down interview - four months after becoming the first woman to take on the job.
She says supporting schools and teaching is a priority for the Welsh Government.
"A lot of children are struggling with additional learning needs so we have to put more support into the classrooms.
"Certainly when I was growing up, they didn't have anything like the support we put in today.
"That's a good thing but...
we need to recruit the best people for those jobs."
"We've got to make sure people understand the difference you can make as a teacher, the fun times you can have and the difference you can make to people's lives.
"So it is a great profession, it's a very good starting salary, we do hope more people will take the opportunity."
In a recent Senedd Committee study, it found that the availability of supply teachers is struggling to keep up with demand, with schools sometimes forced to employ unqualified staff to provide cover.
The Committee recently carried out an inquiry to measure progress since a major report by the Auditor General for Wales in 2020 highlighted a number of problems that Welsh Government needed to tackle within the supply teaching system.
Finding adequate cover in rural areas and a lack of Welsh language teachers to teach Welsh and other subjects through the medium of Welsh were major issues highlighted in 2020 and remains a specific problem today.
When asked on how to tackle this, the First Minister said:
"We incentivise people to train for this and we pay them quite a lot of money to train to become teachers."
"So there's a big incentive to encourage people to get into those areas already and we've really keen to make sure that we encourage more people.""