Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham was in bullish mood yesterday (Friday June 29) as he described his plans for a 'Manchester Baccalaureate' (MBacc) to create a clearer path for young people who don't want to go to university.
Appearing by video at a major education conference in Sheffield he said: "We're not going to take no for an answer. We're going to build this system, it's right and proper in this day and age that a place like Greater Manchester shouldn't have to ask permission from anyone to do what we know is right for our young people."
But it's clear his vision for an alternative to the existing English Baccalaureate (EBacc) core subjects for GCSE students face strong opposition from the Department of Education, long regarded as the Whitehall department least likely to cede control of policy to the regions.
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At the same Northern Powerhouse Education, Employment and Skills Summit Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said the mayor didn't have the power to introduce the reforms by himself and that she opposed regional variations in education standards.
Hear what she had to say in The Northern Agenda podcast:
Using his trailblazer devolution deal, Mr Burnham wants to roll out the MBacc - a ‘flexible’ qualification aimed at offering students an alternative route to certain jobs when they choose their GCSEs - by September 2024.
The DfE has already said the new alternative route would ‘narrow opportunities available to young people’ and speaking on The Northern Agenda podcast Ms Keegan said it was important to "have some national standards and national qualifications that are equally understood".
Pressed on whether she would let the mayor pursue the idea, she said: "He doesn't actually have that as part of his role to be honest. It's something that he said, but it's not within his power to change."
She added: "I think it's important schools across the country have the same sort of standards and the same sort of core. We don't want to be having the schools in Manchester having one thing, schools in Liverpool having another.
"What we're trying to do is make sure every school is good or outstanding. Every child has a broad range of things that they study up to the age of 16. And then it can narrow, and then it can be more vocational or technical in its nature.
"We've designed that system because the evidence is, we've got the Education Endowment Foundation, they do a lot of really detailed studies on what is the best approach and at what point you narrow, what point you have a broader curriculum, and what are the key core pillars of education and knowledge.
"So they do about a quarter of all of the world's educational research. It's really brilliant, what we do here, and we set that up about 2012. And you know that's where we base our evidence on.
"So you can't just come up with some anecdotal stuff, there's evidence, which is leading us to set the curriculum with a lot of broad choice, but in the way that we guide the core subjects that we want everybody to at least do up to the age of 16."
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Rather than pushing them to study the subjects that make up the EBacc and pursue the path to university, the mayor wants to create an alternative, calling for an end to the ‘snobbery’ around education.
English and maths would still be a requirement of the MBacc – as it is within the EBacc – but so would computer science or ICT. Other options would include engineering, art, drama and music, and the sciences.
For their part, Greater Manchester leaders say the MBacc has the support of colleges, businesses and the region's Chamber of Commerce.
A spokesman for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority said: “Greater Manchester's plans for the MBacc have been enthusiastically welcomed by businesses, colleges, students and parents. This is not about a separate system but a localised version of what the Government wants to achieve, designed to make T Levels work in the real world.
"We look forward to working with the Department for Education to clear up any misunderstandings and bring about a reform that will be hugely beneficial to the two thirds of young people in Greater Manchester who are not going to university.”
The Labour mayor told a Lords committee this month that although the latest devolution deal was agreed on the basis that there would be no additional funding, he hopes to discuss financial support from the government for the MBacc proposal.
Nevertheless, the DfE has said that it would be up to individual schools to decide if they want to adopt this new approach by offering the MBacc.
