COMMENTING on today's report that teachers are concerned about the future funding of the Foundation Phase early years learning programme, Shadow Education Minister Paul Davies AM said:

"Teachers, parents and pupils have every reason to be worried.

"There have been concerns over funding for this initiative ever since it was launched. It's almost as if through her own incompetence, the minister was setting it up to fail.

"These latest concerns demonstrate yet again why, in the face of shrinking budgets, the Assembly Government must re-focus spending on frontline services, instead of gimmicks and giveaways.

"Welsh Conservatives welcomed the launch of the Foundation Phase and remain fully supportive of its aims.

"But the whole project is being undermined by the Assembly Government's failure to invest sufficiently in its future, and in giving children the best possible start to their education."