I am delighted that a central theme of this year’s Wales Education Conference will be improving standards at key stage 3. This is one of the priorities of the Welsh Assembly, as was made clear in The Learning Country, published last September.

That strategy document, the first comprehensive statement on education and lifelong learning in Wales, charts the way forward through to 2010. It sets out how I intend to promote Wales as a learning country, making the most of partnership and collaboration initiatives. It celebrates what teachers have achieved for pupils in Wales, expresses confidence in the capacity of the profession to go still further with proper recognition and support, and describes the nature of this support.

As a matter of policy, reliance on the private sector has been ruled out in Wales. So has the introduction of specialist schools. In Wales, schools have long been encouraged to build on their strengths. When a system is working well it makes no sense to disrupt the productive pattern of relationships on which it rests. So we remain committed to a dynamic, all-ability comprehensive system, where the school is embedded in its local community.

My proposals range from a new foundation stage for three to seven-year- olds through to widening access to lifelong learning after the age of 16. A new qualification, the Welsh Baccalaureate, is to be introduced and a pilot scheme involving 19 schools is under way. I am also proposing new measures to secure better transitional arrangements for pupils moving from primary to secondary school. There is clear evidence that effective collaboration between primary and secondary schools and imaginative use of teaching staff across key stages 2 and 3 can bring huge benefits in attainment in the early secondary years.

All the proposals in The Learning Country are backed by a massive programme of investment (pound;7.7 billion up to 2004). This will enable us to build educational highways from schools to universities - sweeping away barriers to participation. Our aim is that all our young people - not just a select few - should get the best start in life and have enticing opportunities to reach their full potential. We will also give them an entitlement to influence the decisions that affect them. By working together, we will realise our ambition to make Wales a learning country.

hear the ministerJane Davidson will be speaking on The Learning Country on Friday, May 24 at 9.30am