Why Britain Needs Burnham’s Education Revolution

For decades, Westminster's elite have been telling young people that university is the natural destination once they've finished school. For many students, it has been an expectation rather than a conscious choice: the inevitable path to a fruitful career, whilst technical and vocational education has been viewed as merely a fallback option for those who fail to make the grade academically. This has left Britain with an undesirable paradox, whereby we have more graduates than ever, but employers struggle to find the skilled workers they need.

This is exactly the issue that Andy Burnham's proposed education reforms seek to address. His objective to implement the principles established by Greater Manchester's reforms on a national scale signifies more than just another education policy. Rather, it contests the presupposition that academic and vocational forms of higher education should hold different weight. At a time of major skills shortages and relatively weak productivity, Britain ought to seriously revamp what educational success looks like. Burnham's education revolution may finally be the change which prompts it.

It's important to note that the issue runs far deeper than the qualifications students leave school with. It also concerns the choices they are encouraged to make whilst they're there. Fundamentally, academic achievement remains the predominant measure of educational success, with schools under immense pressure to deliver strong exam results and a clear pipeline into higher education. Meanwhile, other, usually more practical careers, often go largely overlooked by schools. This presents a huge issue due to the fact that all young people have varying abilities and aspirations. A teenager who excels at practical work should not be made to feel that their abilities are for whatever reason less valuable than those of another teenager who thrives academically. Yet our education system has persistently been more able to identify academic potential than it has anything else.

It is impossible not to identify this problem without discussing the Blair government's education reforms in the early 2000s, as Blair placed the expansion of higher education at the heart of his vision for a modernised, knowledge-based economy when he entered Downing Street in 1997. Subsequently, an ambition was established that 50% of young people go on to higher education. This drove a substantial expansion in university participation and reflected the general belief that a more educated workforce would have positive effects on upward social mobility and consequently, Britain's economic prospects. This produced an unintended consequence, whereby as university participation expanded, it increasingly became the assumed and automatic destination for school leavers, blurring the crucial distinction between having the opportunity to attend university and being expected to attend university. And as alluded to earlier, the result has been an education system that's been increasingly skewed towards a particular form of achievement. Britain does of course need graduates, but it also requires an abundance of workers across a host of industries.

The consequences of this imbalance are stark. British employers are continually reporting significant difficulties in recruiting people with the skills they need, with the latest Employer Skills Survey finding that 87% of skill-shortage vacancies are caused, at least partially, by a lack of technical and practical skills, with specialist knowledge being the most commonly reported gap. Construction offers a particularly bleak example, as government statistics show that 45% of vacancies in this sector are proving to be a challenge to fill due to a lack of candidates with the necessary skills and qualifications. This has a profound wider impact, as it directly constrains the country's ability to achieve its wider ambitions. Britain cannot build enough homes without its builders, electricians, plumbers, etc. It cannot modernise its infrastructure without engineers. And it cannot take full advantage of emerging technologies without workers possessing the technical skills to develop and implement them.

Burnham's answer to this crisis is to make technical education mainstream after decades of marginalisation, drawing heavily on the approach developed with the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate (MBacc). This has included a technical pathway from around age 14, greater employer involvement, and stronger links between education and local economic needs. This model is intended to sit alongside the traditional academic route as opposed to replacing it. This is an important distinction, as the argument here is not that anyone should be discouraged from attending university, but that young people should be offered a meaningful choice between different forms of education. Needless to say, university remains a natural path for many esteemed careers.

There are valid questions regarding whether the Manchester model can be effectively implemented throughout the country. Teachers and colleges will require resources. Employers will need to actively participate. Technical qualifications will need to command genuine credibility. But ultimately, these arguments are for getting the reform right, not for avoiding it entirely. And when it comes to feasibility, it is worth mentioning that this approach has had success on a national scale elsewhere. Take Germany, for instance, where its dual apprenticeship system combines classroom-based vocational education with paid training as part of a company, with employers themselves playing a major role in designing training and assessments. It's obviously unlikely that we're able to replicate this wholesale, but that's not to say that inspiration cannot be taken from it. Features such as greater employer involvement in curriculum design and stronger links between education and employment, for example, correlate closely with Burnham's approach and could help give technical education in Britain further credibility.

Whether Andy Burnham's proposed reforms will be as transformative as many hope remains to be seen. Certain things, however, are for certain: they challenge a deeply entrenched hierarchy that has defined the British education system for decades, and recognise that the country's future prosperity will depend largely on those who build, maintain and operate the infrastructure around us, alongside graduates. The real test will be whether his government can turn this grand ambition into a system that works nationally. But regardless of any doubts, we should welcome the attempt, because if we are serious about opportunity, productivity and growth, we need to, as the Prime Minister puts it, 'value the hard hat as much as the graduation cap'.