Cambria Politico - The Political Blog

For some time there has been talk of creating a truly-welsh version of the royal honour list - some form of Prix Owain Glyndwr, for truly important services to Wales.

One subsidiary problem has been finding someone truly worthy - Gwynfor Evans, the Nationalist, was awarded an equivalent, and a couple of others have been found worthy.

But who next ?  Surely no-one other than Jane Davidson, Welsh minister for education until last May’s election and Rhodri Morgan’s reshuffle that followed.

And why her ? Because in the autumn of last year the Assembly Government published Wales Curriculum: Summary of the Consultation Proposals, Key Stages 2-4.

In the way that governments covering the region that is the UK work, this rather heavyweight document would have been ordered in detail to be written well over six months before; in other words, by the equally heavyweight Ms Davidson, when she was minister, rather than by her replacement, the former health supremo Jane Hutt.

If I’m wrong, I’ll be glad to be corrected by the normally uncommunicative - on this sort of matter, anyway - Assembly press office.

Jane - whichever one it is, and I suspect the former because she’s better at leading - fully deserves her Prix Owain Glyndwr for a massive re-writing of the syllabus for teaching history.

For the first time EVER, it seems, the history of Wales during the Age of the Princes will be - after the document has been formally implemented in the wake of the current consultation - a near-compulsory part of the curriculum for every pupil in Wales.

During the crucial years in a child’s development between ages seven and 11 - Key Stage 2, in official jargon - an additional topic has been added. “The Age of of the Princes has been added as an extra option,” says the official paper..

“This provides an opportunity to bridge the present 1,500-year gap  between the study of the daily life of the Iron Age Celts or Romans and the study of life in Tudor times,” it adds.

No wonder Welsh Labour AMs and MPs are so deeply scared of ever even mentioning those days when Wales as an independent state. When at school, they never learned as much as a single fact-let about that period. To them - and to most people in Wales - an independent Wales was almost an invention from the Nats.

If not a single word has been taught at the national curriculum about the period between 1063 and 1283 (death of Llywelyn II), is it no surprise that Labour AMs are suspicious of the entire idea, while the general population wonder whether Welsh princes dwelled in the land fairies rather than ruling over the land ‘twixt Mon and Mon?

All that could deprive Ms Davidson of her award is the word “option”. Surely, this part of Welsh history should be compulsory for all.

The consultation has now closed. If the word “compulsory” has not been substituted, perhaps we can rest in the hope that at the next updating, it will be that easier to slip it in.