Andy Burnham’s plans to put academic and technical education routes on an equal footing in England have been welcomed by many, but none were more enthusiastic than the former Conservative minister Kenneth Baker.
“I’m very impressed with what he has said,” the 91-year-old former education secretary, home secretary and Conservative party chair told the Guardian. “It’s a very significant announcement. I’m going to try to persuade the Conservative party to support this.”
Lord Baker and Burnham may seem strange bedfellows. They belong to different generations; they support different political parties. But at a time when a million 16- to 24-year-olds are not in employment, education or training (Neets), they share a vision for a school system in which technical and vocational skills are as valued as academic qualifications.
The new prime minister’s plans for schools to develop technical and vocational courses for students aged 14 and above, which are responsive to the local jobs market, are based in part on the Greater Manchester baccalaureate he introduced as the region’s mayor in 2023. The inspiration for Burnham’s MBacc, however, lies in Baker’s longstanding vision for high-quality vocational and technical education delivered via university technical colleges, or UTCs.
First introduced by the coalition government in 2010, UTCs are state schools for 14- to 19-year-olds, funded by government, which work with local employers and universities to deliver a specialist technical education alongside core curriculum subjects.
Baker is president of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which oversees England’s 44 UTCs. They have faced significant challenges in the past – some have struggled with recruitment, a number have closed and Ofsted inspections have not always been positive – but if success is measured by how few pupils end up Neet, they look like a success.
According to Baker, UTCs today have the lowest level of youth unemployment of any group of schools – less than 5%, compared with 16.4% in state secondary schools. “I’m very proud of the fact that last year half of our schools had no unemployment,” said Baker. “Every student went on to further education, or a university or a job. It’s an exceptional achievement.”
Critically, Burnham has identified that the key to success is starting a technical route at 14, said Baker. “It’s too late to do it at 16.”
In what could be a blueprint for the new Burnham vision, Walney School in Barrow-in-Furness will this September introduce an employer-led technical education pathway – a UTC “sleeve” within the school – to equip young people with the skills for high-quality careers in healthcare and engineering, and help local employers tackle skills shortages.
In order to make this happen on a national scale, classrooms will have to be converted into workshops. In one UTC with a health specialism, some of the rooms have been converted into a hospital ward and a pharmacy. The costs could be high.
School leaders and teaching unions, reading about Burnham’s plans on their summer break, are worried about the lack of detail and whether the funding will be there to deliver such wide-scale changes. Budgets are already tight and school leaders are grappling with an avalanche of policy reforms to curriculum, inspection and special needs, among others.
“Currently, schools are under significant and increasing financial pressure,” said Matt Wrack, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union. “They are being asked to do even more with even less. No successful and sustainable package of change is deliverable in such circumstances and the prime minister must take action to invest in education if the aims of this announcement are to become a reality.”
Others are worried it could have a negative impact on disadvantaged children. The shadow education secretary, Laura Trott, posted on X: “Labour is repeating the mistakes of the past. They previously tried this approach of more ‘vocational’ courses at GCSE. What happened? The poorest children got funnelled down them, standards dropped and outcomes did not improve.”
Tom Richmond, an education policy analyst and former Department for Education adviser, echoed her concerns. He posted on LinkedIn: “One of the biggest challenges will be making sure these new ‘technical pathways’ do not become a dumping ground for ‘those who can’t’.
“Who will choose whether a pupil pursues a technical rather than an academic pathway? The pupil? Parents? Schools? We’ve seen enough from dodgy practices around admissions at age 11 to know that some schools have developed a knack of, shall we say, encouraging some pupils to attend other schools.
“Many UTCs initially struggled with being a dumping ground for the kids that other schools didn’t want (although that has changed over time).”
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) raised concerns about the challenge of getting employers involved. Imran Tahir, senior research economist at the IFS, said: “Getting employers to engage with designing – and perhaps helping to deliver – training programmes will be vital to their success. Recent experience with T-levels shows how challenging it can be to secure their involvement in delivery.”
Marc Doyle, CEO of the Quest Trust, a multi-academy trust that includes the University Collegiate School, a UTC in Bolton, is sanguine. “I’ve always been a huge believer in the power of technical education to improve life chances. It’s been music to my ears listening to Andy Burnham’s announcement. In Bolton we are part of the MBacc delivery group. All of a sudden the rest of the world is starting to catch up.”