Powys County Council has approved a new Welsh-medium education strategy to increase the number of bilingual learners in the county.

It aims to ensure that children in Powys can access Welsh-medium education from early years to their school leaving age.

Councillor Phyl Davies, cabinet member for education, said the new strategy will "ensure that our young people have the same opportunities as their peers in the rest of Wales to pursue their education in Welsh through to the end of secondary school”.

Concerns had been raised that not all parts of the county have easy access to Welsh-medium education, and that subject choices in Welsh become fewer and fewer as pupils progressed through school.

Cllr Davies added: “Over the last 12 months, we have had significant engagement with parents, learners, school leaders, teachers and others to help inform the re-shaping and transformation of the educational provision for children and young people in Powys.

“During our engagement sessions, concerns were expressed around the current provision of education in Welsh in Powys.

“Not all parts of the county have easily accessible primary or secondary education through the medium of Welsh, many schools that do provide a dual-stream approach do not deliver enough of their curriculum in Welsh to satisfy their learners and the choice of subjects taught through the medium of Welsh becomes smaller as the learner get older are some of the concerns that were raised during our engagement sessions.

“The evidence from the rest of Wales is that bilingual/Welsh-medium provision offers the best opportunity for learners to become fully bilingual, whilst also creating a dynamic outward looking cultural environment.

“We want to improve access to Welsh-medium provision across all the key stages of education and increase the opportunities for children and young people in Powys to become fully bilingual.

“I believe that our new Welsh-medium Education Strategy will help deliver this. It will ensure that our young people have the same opportunities as their peers in the rest of Wales to pursue their education in Welsh through to the end of secondary school.”

The strategy will now form the basis of the council’s new Welsh in Education Strategic Plan (WESP), a binding document to ensure provision for increasing the opportunities for children and young people in Powys to become fully bilingual.

Improving access to Welsh-medium provision across all key stages of education is included in the Strategy for Transforming Education in Powys 2020-2030, which was approved in April.