Greater Manchester Baccalaureate will give choice, mayor says

Mr Burnham said the plans went "beyond party politics" and were a change that was needed nationwide

Greater Manchester's mayor has revealed plans to give the region's students the option of studying technical subjects instead of going to university.

Andy Burnham wants a Greater Manchester Baccalaureate (MBacc) to be a new "education pathway" for young people choosing their GCSE options.

He said it would offer a technical alternative to the existing academic English Baccalaureate (EBacc).

The "value of technical skills" had been ignored for "too long", he added.

The MBacc has been made possible through Greater Manchester's new devolved powers which were announced in March.

A representative for the mayor's office said those powers gave Greater Manchester "further oversight of post-16 technical skills".

They said they would allow local leaders "to better shape how the city region supports the one in three young people who do not want to go to university and match them into the skilled jobs being created in the local economy".

'Maximise their chances'

Launching the plans, the Labour mayor said they went "beyond party politics" and were a change that was needed nationwide.

"For too long, we have ignored the value of technical skills and that ends today in Greater Manchester," he said.

He said he wanted to ensure young people who did not want to go to university had "the tools to achieve their career aspirations", be that via an MBacc, apprenticeships or "partnership working with employers".

"The EBacc is great for young people who want to go on to university, but there is no equivalent suite of qualifications at 14 and 16 that align with the real-life employment opportunities being created in our city-region," he said.

The MBacc has been made possible through Greater Manchester's new devolved powers

He said that meant there were "skills gaps in the Greater Manchester economy and confusion from young people on what they need to do to secure a job in their chosen industry".

"Today is the start of the journey of creating a clear and equal pathway for technical education," he added.

His plans would see the MBacc run alongside the EBacc and guide students towards subjects which would "maximise their chances of getting a good job... such as engineering, computer science or the creative subjects".

Councillor Eamonn O'Brien, the region's on education and work, said there was "wide demand for skills in areas such as digital, education and early years or construction, but our current skills system is not linking young people to these jobs".

"Our ambition is to start with what is already working well, in this case the well-travelled route to university, and ensure young people have the same route to technical education," he said.

He added that the plan was being proposed "not as an end in itself, but as the start of a discussion about how, working together, we can move towards the vision of Greater Manchester as an integrated technical education, skills and work city region".

If the plans go ahead, the MBacc would start in September 2024, subject to ongoing discussion with central government.

A similar scheme has been in place in Wales for a number of years.