EDUCATION chiefs have said that the current system of having a sixth form in each Secondary School will have to change.

Head of Education, Dr Alex Clark, made the comments at a meeting of the Learning and Skills Scrutiny Committee.

His department is conducting survey as they prepare to re-shape education for 16-18 year-olds with a sixth form review.

The department wants to find out what factors are taken into consideration by 16-year-olds when they decide if, how and where they will continue their education.

Dr Clark said: “We have just over 1,000 pupils across the whole of Powys.

“What is stark to me is how few sixth form children we have in a geographic area that is 26 per-cent of the whole of Wales.

“It is a very small number of children to be delivering A levels to across 12 sites.”

“There is no way we can continue to maintain 12 sixth forms.”

Dr Clark read out a list of numbers of pupils in Powys’ sixth forms  53, 104, 79, 50, 120,  56 (2017), 77 (2017), 64,  68, 200, 137 and 84.

He said: “All but a few of those numbers would cause me great concern, as you would be struggling to provide the high quality of teaching you require across all specialist areas.

“It indicates quite clearly why we have to look a post-16 transformational change so we can put the quality where we need it to be.”

Education portfolio holder, Cllr Myfanwy Alexander (Independent, Banwy), explained why the data from the survey is important.

Cllr Alexander said: “We are asking how they made their choices so that we can find out more about why youngsters are going over the border.

“Hereford is a big draw in the south they go to Neath and in my neck of the woods they go to Shrewsbury or Oswestry to college.

“Sometimes it’s because the subject they want is there, sometimes they go because they are fed up in school and want to be in a college environment.

Cllr Alexander added that some youngsters had told her that they wanted to go to the “bright lights within walking distance of Costa”.

“The paper on post-16 education will be with cabinet after Easter and we want to include the survey reports.”

She believed it was dangerous to make changes without the necessary information.

“We need to help our youngsters fulfil their potential but we need honest data about why they make the choices they do, and we can use that to drive the choices we need to do, ” said Cllr Alexander.

The whole point of the survey according to education offices is that the “learner’s voice”  is heard as part of future changes.

The survey runs until Sunday, April 7, and can be found by following this link