Burnham ‘to end dominance of universities in education system’

UK prime minister-in-waiting Andy Burnham has said he will end the “days of a school system configured entirely around the university route” in his first major speech as a Labour leadership candidate, promising also to put universities at the heart of his plans to create an “innovation nation”.

Speaking in Manchester on 29 June, Burnham outlined his vision for the country after winning the Makerfield by-election, a victory that prompted current prime minister Keir Starmer to resign.

Burnham has announced that he will campaign to replace Starmer, with potential opponents running out of time to put their names forward to stand against him. If Burnham is the only candidate in the leadership contest, he could be confirmed as prime minister as early as 17 July.

Echoing comments made on the campaign trail, Burnham promised to reshape the country’s tertiary education system – with less of a focus on getting people into university.

“The days of a school system configured entirely around the university route will be brought to an end,” said Burnham.

“University is great for those who want it – but when are we going to focus on the life chances of those kids who want something different? When? The country hasn’t done that for a long, long time.”

Over the past few years there has been political consensus that the post-16 sector needs to be rebalanced but governments have taken few practical steps to reduce the dominance of higher education on young people’s life chances.

A section of the population appears to be growing increasingly sceptical of higher education and whether a degree can secure a decent job, with findings from an inquiry into white working-class aspiration, released on the same day as Burnham’s speech, showing just 22 per cent of this cohort believe that university is “important for getting a good job”.

Burnham acknowledged that promises to reorganise the education system had been made before but said he would go further.

“People have argued for many years for an education system based on parity between academic and technical and that is what we will build, giving every young person growing up here a clear path into a reindustrialised Britain.”

The prospective Labour leader also promised to place universities “at the heart of local economies”, drawing on his experience as mayor of Greater Manchester – widely seen as a research and development success story.

He promised to devolve power away from Westminster and set up a “Number 10 North”, shifting some of the civil servants who work in central government to Manchester. 

Experts had predicted that Burnham might find a variation on Boris Johnson’s “science superpower” ambition to sum up his approach to research and development.

In the speech, he repeatedly referred to making the UK an “innovation nation”.

“We are such an inventive country and, going forward, we can be the world’s leading innovation nation,” said Burnham.

“I will back our scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and creatives – as I have done here [Manchester] – and show how Britain will be the innovation nation of the next decade,” he added later. 

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com