WELSH colleges are changing the way they tackle misogyny, harmful online behaviour and peer-on-peer abuse through an international project backed by Taith funding.

The collaboration, led by ColegauCymru, links further education colleges in Wales with partners in Canada to share practical approaches to promoting respectful relationships and improving learner wellbeing.

The project was developed following concerns highlighted by Estyn about peer-on-peer sexual harassment in further education settings.

It also supports Welsh Government priorities around tackling gender-based violence, improving learner wellbeing and creating safe, inclusive learning environments.

Five Welsh further education colleges worked with five colleges and universities in Canada through an international Community of Practice, allowing staff to share experiences, develop ideas and look at new ways of addressing common challenges.

Knowledge-sharing visits between Wales and Canada focused on issues including misogyny, harmful online content, peer-on-peer abuse and the need to engage young men in open conversations about relationships and masculinity.

One of the main lessons from the project was the importance of involving young men directly in discussions about healthy relationships, online influence and harmful attitudes.

The work has also led to wider partnerships with She Is Not Your Rehab, a New Zealand-based anti-violence movement, and Our Voice Our Journey, a youth-focused social impact organisation.

Working with these organisations, ColegauCymru delivered regional sessions in North and South Wales to help colleges promote respectful relationships and challenge misogyny.

At one event at Cardiff City Stadium, around 400 young men from across South Wales took part in discussions led by international speaker Matt Brown on misogyny, masculinity and respectful relationships.

Staff involved in the project say it has already influenced how colleges approach learner wellbeing, with greater emphasis on training, early intervention and embedding conversations about healthy relationships into college life.

Siân Holleran, International Project Manager at ColegauCymru, said: “Taith funding has been critical in enabling us to connect with international partners and bring global expertise into a national priority for Wales.

“This has created space for honest conversations, practical solutions and lasting change for both staff and learners, while also positioning Welsh colleges as leaders in addressing these shared challenges internationally.”

Welsh and Canadian participants also delivered a joint workshop at the ColegauCymru Annual Conference, where they shared recommendations and discussed future priorities for the sector.

Susana Galván, Executive Director of Taith, said: “This project reflects Wales’s growing role as a confident, internationally engaged nation. Organisations across Wales are using international partnerships to address shared challenges while developing approaches shaped around the needs of Welsh learners and communities.

“Through Taith, we are supporting a uniquely Welsh approach that combines global partnerships with a strong focus on equity, wellbeing and inclusion; helping ensure that international learning directly benefits people across Wales.

“It also demonstrates the growing international interest in learning from Wales, as we share our expertise while working together to address shared global challenges.”

ColegauCymru has since secured further Taith funding to expand the work, including the development of new bystander training for learners and staff across the further education sector in Wales.

The organisation says the next phase will help ensure the impact of the international collaboration continues to grow across Welsh colleges.

SCHOOL leaders have warned that a Welsh Government plan to increase incentive payments for trainee teachers in priority subjects risks creating a “two-tier workforce”.

NAHT Cymru said the move may help attract some new teachers, but warned it does not address the wider recruitment and retention crisis facing schools across Wales.

The Welsh Government’s priority subject incentive scheme offers grants to eligible postgraduate teacher trainees in subjects including biology, chemistry, design and technology, digital technology and computer science, mathematics, international languages, physics and Welsh.

Laura Doel, national secretary of NAHT Cymru, said: “While we agree that an ambitious plan to help schools struggling with recruitment and retention of teachers is needed, we don’t think focusing on subject-specific incentives is the way to go.

“This risks creating a two-tier workforce and appears to be a short-term sticking plaster solution for a systemic problem.”

She said there appeared to be no requirement for teachers to remain in schools for a set number of years after induction in order to keep the payment.

Ms Doel added: “We know a significant proportion of teachers leave the profession within the first five years of teaching.”

NAHT Cymru said ministers should focus instead on the wider pressures affecting teachers, school leaders and primary schools, as well as secondary subjects where recruitment is difficult.

The union said improving pay, terms and conditions, and reducing workload would do more to make teaching an attractive long-term career.

Ms Doel said: “By going further in restoring the real-terms value of pay, which fell sharply over the previous decade, improving terms and conditions, and bearing down on unsustainable levels of workload, ministers could make the profession an attractive long-term career proposition once again.

“But schools also need fairer funding to recruit the staff and support staff they need and deliver for pupils.”

She said ensuring schools receive the full consequential funding owed through the Barnett Formula should be a priority for the new administration.

NAHT represents more than 38,000 school leaders across early years, primary, secondary and special schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Claire Archibald says proposals affecting Cilgerran and Manorbier show rural families risk losing real parental choice

A REFORM UK Senedd member has asked the Welsh Government to intervene over the future of Church schools in West Wales, following growing concern about proposals affecting rural schools in Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion.

Claire Archibald MS, who represents Ceredigion Penfro, has written to Education Minister Anna Brychan asking what safeguards are in place to protect Church schools, Christian education and parental choice.

Her intervention follows months of controversy over the future of rural education provision, including proposals affecting Cilgerran Church in Wales Voluntary Controlled School and Manorbier Church in Wales Voluntary Controlled School.

Pembrokeshire County Council has consulted on plans to discontinue Cilgerran Church in Wales VC School and establish a new 3-11 community school in its place.

In Manorbier, the council has also progressed proposals to discontinue the village’s Church in Wales school, which has been at the centre of a long-running row following a serious fire.

Ms Archibald said the issue should not be treated as a simple administrative change.

She said: “Christianity has helped shape Wales for generations. It is part of our history, our values, and the life of many of our villages and towns.

“Church schools matter. They give parents the choice of a Christian education for their children, and in rural areas that choice can be lost very easily when a school is closed, reorganised, or stripped of its Church status.

“I fully understand that councils face financial pressures and difficult decisions, but we cannot allow those pressures to quietly erase Christian school provision from rural Wales.

“These are not just technical changes. They affect parental choice, community life, and the future of Christian education in Wales.”

Rural school concerns

The Herald has previously reported on strong opposition to changes at Cilgerran, where many parents and residents have argued that the school’s Church status is part of its identity and community role.

The Manorbier case has also attracted significant local attention, with campaigners arguing that the village school should be protected following the disruption caused by the fire and the temporary relocation of pupils.

Ms Archibald said the pattern across rural Wales was worrying.

She has also raised concerns about proposals affecting village schools in Ceredigion, including Ysgol Llanfihangel y Creuddyn, a community school on a Church in Wales-owned site.

She said: “Parents should not be told they have choice on paper when the nearest realistic alternative may be many miles away.

“In rural areas, distance matters. Transport matters. Community matters.

“I have asked the Education Minister to set out what safeguards are in place to protect Church schools, Christian education, rural communities, and parental choice before these decisions are allowed to go ahead.”

Questions for ministers

In her letter, Ms Archibald asked the Welsh Government to confirm what assessment has been made of Church schools closed, discontinued, or proposed for category change in Wales.

She has also asked whether stronger guidance will be issued to councils considering proposals that affect Church schools.

The MS has requested that the minister meet affected parents, governors, local representatives and the relevant dioceses.

Councils have previously argued that school reorganisation proposals must take account of pupil numbers, building conditions, budgets, educational standards and long-term sustainability.

However, campaigners say that in rural communities the closure or reclassification of a school can have consequences beyond education, including the loss of community identity, longer journeys for children and fewer realistic choices for parents.