The Welsh Language Society has welcomed the Assembly Government's publication of its Welsh medium education strategy today (Tuesday 20th April).The society emphasised that Welsh should be treated as an essential skill for every child; they also expressed concern about measuring demand for Welsh-medium education in areas where the majority of primary schools teach through the medium of Welsh already.Ffred Ffransis, Chair of the Welsh Language Society's Education Group said:"I do welcome the publication of this national strategy - which is the first in our nation's history. There are positive elements in the document, but we would have liked to see a recognition that Welsh should be treated as an essential educational skill - exactly like the ability to communicate in Enlgish or use IT effectively is treated as essential.

"We support the elements in the strategy to increase the number of Welsh medium schools - a positive step towards ensuring that no pupil is denied Welsh education.""We recognise that implementing this strategy would ensure a substantial rise in Welsh language provision in a number of areas. However, we believe it is wrong to base the strategy on demand from parents. Instead, provision should be based on an acceptance that communicating Welsh and producing Welsh in the workplace is an essential educational skill for every pupil."We need to move to a situation where no pupil in Wales is denied that essential skill. It's completely mistaken to talk of 'measuring demand' for essential skills. No-one would measure the demand ofor skills like IT, Maths or English for pupils, so in the areas where Welsh medium education is already the norm, that would be a mistake."