AUGUST is usually a quiet political month with Parliament and the Assembly both in recess for the summer and politics takes a back seat to the important news days of the month, A-level and GCSE results day.

For many pupils waiting anxiously on their results it will be one of the most important days of the lives so far, I would like to take this opportunity to wish them all the best of luck and I sincerely hope they all achieve the results necessary to pursue their ambitions in life.

However, it seems inevitable that once again, despite the pupils’ best efforts, the Welsh education system will once again be the poorest performing in the UK.

This is not the fault of our children or our teachers, but of a Welsh Government that has mismanaged and underfunded education.

Funding levels in Wales are now estimated to be £678 per pupil per year below England, with no sign of the gap reducing anytime soon.

This cannot be allowed to continue.

We only have one chance to in life to get education right and what we have seen so far from the Welsh Government has been a series of can kicking decisions, fudges and underfunding with the result being the failure of a generation of children.

We have been left in the odd position of having regional education consortia as well as local education authorities and Welsh Government with overlapping and potentially conflicting remits.

We need clear responsibility for who is in charge of what areas of school improvement.

One positive development I would like to commend is the work of the Seren Network, which is attempting to boost the number of Welsh pupils able to attend elite universities.

It is often difficult for those applying to Oxbridge and some Russell Group universities to pass the various admissions criteria if they go to a school with little experience in supporting pupils through such interviews and pre-entry exams.

Giving ambitious pupils such support and guidance is a key part of what the Seren Network is trying to achieve and is right that we should seek to spread this opportunity, regardless of what school a pupil attends.

I hope that its efforts this year will lead to many more celebrations on A-level results day.