Education is important to us in Wales. It’s
thought that Britain’s first university was set up by St. Illtud on the coast
of the Vale of Glamorgan, south Wales in the 6th century.
Education in Wales is
compulsory between the ages of 5 to 16 and we have about 1900 state schools
offering free education to more than 470,000 pupils. Another 65,000 students
between 16 and 19 are in vocational training in further education institutions.
A number of overseas pupils are also enrolled in our private fee-paying
schools.
A significant number of
students all over Wales are educated either wholly or largely through the
medium of Welsh and lessons in the language are compulsory for all until the
age of 16. Welsh medium education is available to all age groups from nursery
through to schools, colleges, universities and
adult education.
Today the student population
in Wales is large and diverse; there are 10 universities and 17 further education
colleges and institutions. We have around 250,000 learners studying at further
education institutions per year.
UNIVERSITY OF WALES
PRYFYSGOL CYMRU
The University of Wales was founded in Wales in 1893 as a federal university with three foundation colleges: University College Wales (nowAberystwyth University), which had been founded in 1872 and University College North Wales (now Bangor University) and University College South Wales and Monmouthshire (now Cardiff University) which were founded following the Aberdare Report in 1881. Prior to the foundation of the federal university, these three colleges had prepared students for the examinations of the University of London. A fourth college, Swansea (now Swansea University), was added in 1920 and in 1931 the Welsh National School of Medicine was incorporated. In 1967 the Welsh College of Advanced Technology entered the federal university as the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (UWIST), also in Cardiff. In 1971 St David's College (now part of the University of Wales: Trinity Saint David), Wales' oldest degree-awarding institution, suspended its own degree-awarding powers and entered the University of Wales. A financial crisis in the late eighties caused UWIST and University College Cardiff to merge in 1988, forming the University of Wales College of Cardiff (UWCC). In 1992 the university lost its position as the only university in Wales when the Polytechnic of Wales became the University of Glamorgan (now part of the new University of South Wales).
The university was composed of colleges until 1996, when the university was reorganised with a two-tier structure of member institutions in order to absorb the Cardiff Institute of Higher Education (which became the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (UWIC), now known as Cardiff Metropolitan University) and the Gwent College of Higher Education (which became University of Wales College, Newport (UWCN)). The existing colleges became constituent institutions and the two new member institutions became university colleges. In 2003, both of these colleges became full constituent institutions and in 2004 UWCN received permission from the Privy Council to change its name to the University of Wales, Newport.
