Andy Burnham will tell schools across England to adapt their curriculums to the needs of local businesses as part of a devolution drive aimed at tackling the jobs crisis for young people.
By moving decision-making to local areas, the PM hopes the plan will make technical and vocational skills as valued as academic qualifications – and help cut the benefits bill.
Based in part on the Greater Manchester baccalaureate that Burnham introduced as the region’s mayor, it will task schools with making their curriculums for students aged 14 and above more responsive to the local jobs market, teaching technical skills alongside traditional academic subjects.
It would, Burnham said, mean the country could “value the hard hat every bit as much as the graduation cap”.
Described by No 10 as “a fundamental change to the education system”, the announcement kicks off a week of policy initiatives by Burnham, expected to also cover adult social care, defence and devolution.
After last week’s succession of rapid, consumer-focused policies such as help with electricity bills, Burnham’s team aim to use the coming days to present him as a leader willing to tackle more intractable and complex political problems.
Under the plan, intended to begin operating from September 2028, mayors and other local leaders would work with schools, colleges and employers to devise technical training built around local jobs.
In combination, there will be prioritised funding for such technical and vocational qualifications, plus guidance to Ofsted to recognise the value of these as well as more traditional qualifications.
In addition to giving local areas more control over education for the 14-16 age group, Burnham said the intention was to redress what he said was an over-simplified focus on academic routes.
He said: “For too long in this country, students have been told that you must take the academic path to do well and to be respected. The whole school system has been built around it and that has let down young people seeking technical qualifications.
“I want an education system based on parity between academic and technical which gives all young people a clear path in life. From today, Britain will value the hard hat every bit as much as the graduation cap.”
The intention is also to help address the worsening problem of young people not in education, employment or training, which was the subject of a report published in May by Alan Milburn, the former Labour cabinet minister.
The first part of an ongoing review, Milburn’s report said the issue now affected 1 million young people across the UK, with the numbers rising fast. It cited a number of factors, including a changing job market, inequality and health problems, but also blamed a lack of focus on employability skills and non-academic qualifications.
Milburn said in a statement that he welcomed the plans to overhaul and devolve education for 14-plus pupils, calling it “a big step in the right direction and consistent with the findings of my review”.
Moves to get more young people into work will also be a key element of wider efforts to tackle the benefits system, due to be guided by both Milburn’s findings and a separate review by Stephen Timms, the minister for social security, into the personal independence payment disability system.
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In an interview with the BBC broadcast on Monday night, Burnham said he believed that many young people had been failed by a system that “pays for failure” rather than “sets people up for success”.
Asked if he believed some people received benefits they did not need, he replied: “I wouldn’t necessarily go straight to blaming those people. What I would say is that there are people in the benefit system, young people in their 20s, who have been, I would say, quite seriously let down because the support wasn’t there for them when it should have been there.”
This failure included, he said, “an education system that for a very long time has been obsessed on the university route but hasn’t done enough for young people who want technical qualifications and in many ways has treated them as second class students”.
The new initiative is firmly based on Burnham’s flagship education policy as Greater Manchester mayor, introduced in September 2024.
Known as the Greater Manchester baccalaureate, or MBacc, it was designed to offer courses and work experience for children aged 14 and over in key sectors in the regional economy.
Alongside the traditional subjects of English, maths and sciences, schools in Greater Manchester can now offer technical lessons tailored towards employment in industries including financial services, engineering and manufacturing, construction and the green economy. There are also new routes into public services such as health and social care, education and transport.
Experts say it is too soon to properly evaluate whether the MBacc has been a success – it was piloted in only 10 schools in its first academic year. However, several other of England’s regional mayors have called for greater power over the school curriculum to link it more closely with their local economy.
Some mayors complain that the Department for Education has been one of the most stubborn government bodies when it comes to devolving powers outside Whitehall.
