Andy Burnham's plans to put technical and vocational education on an equal footing with academic routes in England have won unlikely praise from Kenneth Baker, the 91-year-old former Conservative education secretary who introduced university technical colleges (UTCs) in 2010. The prime minister's proposal would see schools develop technical and vocational courses for pupils aged 14 and above, tailored to local job markets, at a time when around a million 16- to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training. Baker sees Burnham's plan as building directly on his own UTC model and says he will lobby the Conservative party to back it.

Burnham's approach, dubbed the MBacc, grew out of the Greater Manchester baccalaureate he launched as regional mayor in 2023, but draws heavily on Baker's UTC vision, which delivers specialist technical education alongside core subjects from age 14 in partnership with employers and universities. Baker says the 44 UTCs overseen by his Baker Dearing Educational Trust have youth unemployment below 5%, compared with 16.4% in ordinary state secondaries, though the schools have also faced recruitment struggles, closures and mixed Ofsted results. Walney School in Barrow-in-Furness will pilot a UTC "sleeve" from September, but scaling the model nationally would require costly conversion of classrooms into workshops, and school leaders and unions have voiced concern over the lack of detail in Burnham's plans.