SOUTH WALES education standards have improved in the past three years, a report has shown.

Estyn, the inspectorate service for education and training in Wales, has acknowledged improvements across South East Wales by the Education Achievement Service (EAS) in one of their latest reports.

The report said that “the rate of improvement in pupil’s outcomes in South East Wales has been faster than that across Wales as a whole over the last three years.”

It also said that EAS “deploys challenge advisers effectively and there is a clear protocol for their work.”

The EAS serves five local authorities - Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire, Newport, and Torfaen, and is designed to raise education standards in South East Wales.

Paul Matthews, lead chief executive for the region has said he is pleased with the outcome, but is not surprised.

He said: “Standards across the region have seen significant improvement over the last couple of years and this is in part due to the focus that the EAS has brought to pupil level outcomes in every single school.

“We are in a good place but we are not complacent.

"I want all of these ‘Good’ judgements converting to ‘Excellent’ over the next couple of years.”

EAS managing director, Debbie Harteveld added: “We welcome the Estyn report which largely reflects our own view of our strengths and areas for improvement.

“We are pleased that the strong vision and values across the region have been recognised and that the various strategies for building capacity within the school system are understood and continue to embed.”