On Wednesday 15 July the Senedd will debate the findings of a Children, Young People and Education Committee interim report on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on areas within its remit.
The report sets out the Committee’s early findings and states:
While we recognise that children and young people currently appear to be less susceptible to the virus than adults, there is little doubt that the wider effects of Covid-19―and the measures taken to manage it―have impacted their lives significantly.
The Committee says it wants to ‘to ensure that a children’s rights approach is not lost in the process of managing this pandemic, nor in our scrutiny as a Senedd’.
This ongoing Committee inquiry is focussing specifically on support for:
- vulnerable children and young people;
- the physical and mental health of children and young people; and
- the higher and further education sector.
The report refers to evidence that says:
“What they (children and young people) have been affected by quite greatly is, if I could call it, collateral damage—their schools have been closed, their clubs have been shut, they can't socialise. All those things have affected children, and they're very anxious, because there's a lot of worry about coronavirus, which they're hearing about—their impact of COVID-19 on children and young people, grandparents might have died, or they're hearing that thousands of people have died.”
The written evidence received to date by the Committee and the correspondence between it and the Welsh Government is published on its webpage.
The high profile issue of whether or not children would return to Welsh schools in September was key to the Committee’s scrutiny of the Minister for Education, Kirsty Williams MS, on 7 July. Welsh Government’s statement, which ‘confirmed that all pupils will be able to return to school in September’, was published on 9 July, the day after the Committee’s interim report was published.
Senedd Research has published a range of articles relevant to the issues covered by the interim report, including:
- schools and pupils;
- the gradual return to school;
- higher education, further education and apprenticeships;
- mental health;
- children’s rights;
- childcare;
- poverty;
- digital inclusion;
- equality issues;
- human rights implications; and
- Coronavirus: Supplementary Budget
Article by Sian Thomas, Senedd Research, Welsh Parliament
We’ve published a range of material on the coronavirus pandemic, including a post setting out the help and guidance available for people in Wales and a timeline of Welsh and UK governments’ response.
You can see all our coronavirus-related publications by clicking here. All are updated regularly.
