Plaid Cymru: Transform economy from bottom - Leanne Wood
Leanne Wood: Welsh education 'graveyard of ambition'
(about 3 hours later)
By Adrian Browne BBC Wales political reporter
By Adrian Browne BBC Wales political reporter
Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood is to stress the need to transform the Welsh economy and create more jobs
Wales' education system has gone from being a "watchword for excellence" to the "graveyard of ambition", Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood says.
She will tell the party's spring conference later on Friday that poor decisions by the UK government and Welsh ministers' "inertia" have left Wales "lagging behind" economically.
At her party's spring conference she said Plaid would introduce a "comprehensive" literacy and numeracy programme to improve standards.
A Plaid Welsh government would seek to build the economy "from the bottom up" by helping small businesses.
Ms Wood also accused Labour of being guilty of a "shocking dereliction of duty, an absolute travesty".
The conference started in Beaumaris, Anglesey, on Friday.
She pledged to raise standards "when I am returned as first minister in 2016".
Plaid will use the two-day event as a campaigning platform for local elections on the island in May.
She told her party's spring conference in Beaumaris, Anglesey, that with 40% of children leaving primary school unable to read or write to the right standard for their age, education had become one of Wales' "great failures".
The poll was postponed by 12 months after the Welsh government appointed commissioners to run Anglesey council, following years of political in-fighting.
Her speech attacked the performance of Labour ministers in the Welsh government.
Ms Wood became the first woman to lead Plaid Cymru a year ago.
"Wales, in the past a watchword for educational excellence, has slipped further and further behind - not just England, but behind 36 other countries in reading and 38 in maths," she said.
She told the party's annual conference in Brecon last September that economic underdevelopment was "the single biggest hurdle to our progress as a nation".
"For Wales - a country where in the past, great store was placed on the value of education - it is extraordinary that it has now become one of our great failures.
In her third conference speech as leader on Friday, she will say the party wants to help small shops, cafes, builders and trades people.
"The Welsh education system has become the graveyard of ambition."
She told BBC Radio Wales on Friday morning that Plaid Cymru would help firms by making it easier for them to win public sector contracts, offering more business rate relief and a new investment bank to help them borrow funds, she will say.
A Plaid Cymru government would introduce a comprehensive literacy and numeracy programme with early intervention to specifically target boys, she said.
"We have got big ambitions for our nation," she said. "We need to build our communities from the bottom up.
The aim would be to make sure all children perform to the best standards by the age of 11.
"Small businesses are the lifeblood of our communities. If each one can taken on one extra worker we could solve our employment problems."
Ms Wood said the party would try to "utilise willing volunteers like retired teachers and other professionals in this work".
She talked about giving them more investment opportunities "which they so badly need".
"When a child fails in education, the consequences stay with them for life," Ms Wood said.
However, she would not be drawn on the party's policy on taxation, saying it would be premature as it could be several years before such powers are devolved to the Welsh assembly.
"Let's take responsibility for putting it right ourselves, now."
Ms Wood will talk at the conference about the need to make Wales a "more connected country" with transport improvements and for all businesses to have access to broadband and 4G mobile services "not just the lucky few".
Friday's agenda also includes discussion sessions on the next steps for devolution in Wales, the UK government's welfare reforms and who should run Welsh public services.
During a morning discussion session on the next steps for devolution, Plaid's parliamentary leader, Elfyn Llwyd, argued a separate Welsh legal system would both save taxpayers money and bring extra investment into Wales.
He told delegates evidence from Scotland, which has its own system, demonstrated the legal process could be run more cheaply closer to home, and he hoped it would work better it it was not "slanted" by the "noise from the tabloids in England".
