The new MBacc education path on offer to young people in Greater Manchester

Andy Burnham launched a new vision last week for how Greater Manchester’s teenagers could grow up.

The mayor, recently re-elected for a third term, officially launched the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate (MBacc) in the city centre in front of hundreds of invited guests from schools, colleges, and businesses interested in signing up to the programme.

The MBacc will create an ‘equal alternative’ in technical education compared to going down the university route, Mr Burnham says.

Once fully-rolled-out, pupils in year 9 will be able to select GCSE options to fit seven ‘pathways’ corresponding to seven industries which are important for Greater Manchester’s economy.

The pathways are:

• health and social care
• digital and technology
• engineering and manufacturing
• construction and the green economy
• financial and professional
• education and early years
• creative, culture, and sport

Alongside the GCSEs to fit their chosen pathway, youngsters will take some core subjects like English, Maths, and Sciences – plus embark on 50 hours’ worth of work experience. After finishing year 11, they will be able to take up a T-level course, with 1,000 of such places available in the seven ‘pathway’ industries.

“We think the system needs to be fixed in a really simple way: to give every single person growing up in Greater Manchester a path into the success story here,” Mr Burnham told the invited guests at Manchester Hall. “We now hit a point where we have the opportunities.

“There have been 235,000 job vacancies across the seven MBacc pathways... Let’s get to 2030 where every young person gets a path and gets hope.”

Lou Cordwell, who chairs the Greater Manchester business board and the MBacc’s employer board, said the programme – which is not a qualification in itself but could see pupils obtain a certificate if they pass all the elements of it – was necessary to prevent Greater Manchester’s economic growth from stalling.

“We’re seeing growth in our economy but I think there’s only so much of that you can import in reality,” she told the local democracy reporting service.

“We saw 10 years of digital transformation in two years in the pandemic. We’ve had this huge accelerated growth, massive impact, frontier technologies like AI and Biotech – so how do we quickly get people into the system that can fill those skills gaps?”

Thursday’s (11 July) announcement comes after the MBacc formed a key part of the mayor’s election manifesto, having been first dreamt up at the start of the 2020s. Officially, the ‘launch’ means that schools and colleges can now express an interest in signing up to a component of the MBacc.

Alongside the GCSEs fitting into some core pathways, the 50 hours’ worth of work experience, and 1,000 new T-level places, the scheme includes an Annual Festival of Technical Education, and a pilot with Raspberry Pi to produce an Applied Computing Certificate.

However, Mr Burnham recognised that there are ‘going to be funding issues’ with the programme, citing there is ‘largely the money is in the system... [it’s] just a system that’s spending that money as well as it should’. That led him to lay out five requests to the government.

“I am sending a message to the new government, firstly around the defunding of BTECs – which was the plan of the old government – we are saying ‘please don’t do that’,” he said after the event. “That would mean 4,500 learners in GM would have an opportunity cut off. Many of those BTECs are in construction and in health and care. That would be disastrous, actually.

“We are also saying there needs to be reform of the apprenticeship levy, which isn’t working. We need more apprenticeships for younger people as opposed to the older age range. We still need those older apprenticeships but not only.

“I think the Ofsted regime – if you speak to any secondary school in Greater Manchester – they would say it needs to have a focus on all students, not just taking the EBacc. Our colleges are also saying they need more space – some capital investment to increase the number of places. We need support pathways for kids with additional needs.

“So there are asks of government here, and they will have to be a partner in the building of the MBacc.”

It was a topic he raised in a recent Downing Street meeting between the new Labour Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and other regional mayors. Mr Burnham added that believes he has the support of the Education Secretary.

He said: “I believe [they like it]. I have no reason to think otherwise, because obviously it delivers many of the aims Labour manifesto – and it does it very quickly... But at the end of the day we are also a devolved administration.

“We are able to do what’s right for us with the freedoms we have been given by the centre of government. And what’s right for us is the MBacc. That’s because that connection with GM makes this relevant to our young people.”

The state of play, therefore, is that the MBacc has been ‘launched’, but it’s still unknown when pupils will start graduating through it – and if the asked-for funding will come through.

Ethan Davies, local democracy reporter & Greta Simpson