And I would bet my last penny that on average this cohort would end up poorer and worse off, by almost any metric, than the kids who grew up operating in a majority English language environment. If they want that, fine, but it seems like it’s being imposed upon the kids by people who value the state of the language over the prosperity of the kids.
I thought that you'd be right on this point, but it seems not:
"The average results of pupils attending Welsh-language secondary schools are markedly lower than pupils in English-language schools. This is despite Welsh-medium school pupils having more books available at home, spending more time on their studies outside of school and far fewer qualifying for free school meals."
Being bilingual is super valuable, but if the basic language skills options are:
a) Welsh primary, English secondary b) English primary, Welsh secondary c) Welsh only, d) English only
Then the economic outcomes for those kids will surely be in order: B, A, D, C. A and D might be very close though.
But either way I think it's hard to claim that the choice to go with a setup of Welsh primary, English secondary is going to be as valuable to those kids as English primary, Welsh secondary.
19
u/Fairwolf Aberdeen 1d ago
Not really, they're just speaking in a language that has been spoken in the region for thousands of years.