Covid lockdowns have been partly blamed for a drop in young Welsh speakers who were unable to use the language regularly for two years.
The 2021 census showed a 5.7% decrease in the number of school-age children able to speak Welsh since 2011.
This is despite the fact that Welsh secondary education has increased by 11,000 pupils over this period.
Students in a Welsh-speaking heartland believe Covid may have struck the confidence of some to use it socially.
The government has ambitious plans to increase the number of speakers to one million by 2050 – with 562,000 saying they could speak it in 2011, this will drop to 538,000 in 2021 (17.8% of the population).
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In 2011, 168,000 school-age children could speak Welsh, in 2021 the figure was just 146,000.
This is despite the fact that the number of pupils in schools teaching Welsh as a first language has risen from 85,325 to 95,120, and many others in bilingual schools.
With lockdowns and home-learning as the country battled Covid between March 2020 and December 2021 – when census data was collected – Government officials believe it may have affected parental confidence in classifying children as Welsh speakers.
“Children were not going to school and it may be that this concern is reflected in the way they reported their children’s ability in Welsh,” said a Welsh Government spokesman.
At Ysgol Bro Teifi in Llandysul, Ceredigion, the number of sixth form pupils has grown to over 900 from 750 in 2016, but pupils said the pandemic has had an impact on language confidence.
“I hardly speak English at home or at school but I may have seen a decline in the community since Covid and maybe people have lost confidence in speaking Welsh,” said Jano, 16.
Osian, 17, agreed, saying he had seen younger students speaking more English.
This is because people from English-speaking families “haven’t really had the opportunity to use the Welsh language in the last two years because of Covid,” he believes.
Despite this, Tomos, 17, is confident about the future, saying: “There are many more students at this school than when we started, which shows that people want their children to receive their Welsh language education.”
Annie, 16, agreed – her mum doesn’t speak Welsh but she said kids “get it”.
Welsh secondary education must be “accessible to all,” said sociology lecturer Dr. Rhian Hodges from Bangor University.
“There is initially a general sense of disappointment and perhaps shock when we look at this paradox between the decline and the number of Welsh middle school enrollments,” she added.
First Minister Mark Drakeford has written to the Office for National Statistics, which compiles the census data, to ask officials to look into why different surveys of Welsh produce different results.
Welsh Language Commissioner Efa Gruffudd Jones said Welsh should be offered “better and more efficiently” in all schools.
In Torfaen, a new language immersion unit – the first in the county – opens in Ysgol Panteg, Pontypool.
It will enable children aged 7 to 11 to take intensive Welsh classes for 12 weeks before moving on to regular Welsh Medium classes.
Headmaster Dr. Matthew Dicken said it would give parents another opportunity to introduce their children to Welsh education.
He added that the aim is “to show the opportunities that Welsh education offers and really give people the opportunity to use that in so many different ways”.
The Welsh Government said: “More children in English language schools are learning Welsh through our Welsh curriculum and we have approved plans with all local authorities to increase Welsh in education over the next 10 years.
“The census is one of many important dates used to consider what changes need to be made in the future to ensure our language thrives.”
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