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The now former Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has confirmed he will run for prime minister after Sir Keir Starmer announced his resignation.

We don’t yet know for sure that Burnham will win the job (Starmer said a new prime minister should be in place by September), but after a storming victory in Makerfield last week, and hopeful Wes Streeting backing his run, it’s looking very likely.

So what might that mean for schools?

The best way to get a sense of Burnham’s views on education is to look at what he’s already been doing in Manchester, where he has introduced his flagship Greater Manchester Baccalaureate (MBacc).

Here’s what the MBacc is, what it has achieved and what it might tell us about the direction of education policy under a government led by Burnham.

What is the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate?

Introduced in the 2024-25 academic year, the MBacc offers pathways into employment through technical education for young people in Greater Manchester.

Essentially, just as the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) intended to point students towards subjects that would pave the way to university, the MBacc guides students towards subjects that will help them move into employment.

Jonathan Simons, partner and head of the education practice at Public First, explains that the MBacc is not a qualification in itself, but “a wrapper” for a series of qualifications (both academic and vocational) as well as additional non-examined activities, like work experience, that are “all wrapped up in a Manchester flag”.

He points out that this makes it “similar to the EBacc - which itself is a wrapper for five GCSEs”.

“The point of an MBacc is that it is meant to be focused on the skills needs of the growing Greater Manchester economy - and to demonstrate that someone can meet them both through exams and also the non-examined content,” he explains.

The award consists of seven “gateways” to industries that make up the local economy that young people can choose from, with subjects aligned to these gateway areas and which young people can move between.

Those are: health and social care; creative, culture and sport; digital and technology; construction and the green economy; manufacturing and engineering; education and early years; and financial, business and professional services.

The MBacc is intended to eventually be embedded into the curriculum in every school, college and provision, so young people who want to can choose technical pathways at 14, 16 and 18.

By 2030, the MBacc promises to deliver more workplace experience for students, including a 45-day placement for all young people who need one; greater availability of T levels and apprenticeships in high-demand areas; and an inclusive pathway for young people with additional needs that will offer them the personalised support they need to get into employment.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority wants every education provision to be able to offer the MBacc by 2030, and by 2035, for every young person in Greater Manchester to have a clear line of sight from education to employment.

What has the MBacc achieved so far?

In the , the initial focus was on holding conversations to establish attitudes towards both technical and academic routes. As part of this, tools and resources were launched to help teachers talk to young people and their parents about the offer, and help providers to plan their curriculum.

Tools and into classrooms were first rolled out as a test-and-learn pilot with 10 schools. The resources are now available online, including some for certain gateway areas.

A network of employers in Greater Manchester was established across the gateway areas to support technical education. This network is intended to help shape the design of the MBacc going forward.

A new certificate in applied computing was also first launched in Manchester in partnership with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and a new platform called “Beeline” was launched in September 2024, where young people can explore jobs in the seven gateway areas.

In addition, Manchester piloted the Careers and Enterprise Company’s Equalex work experience framework, which calls for at least one week of work experience activities at some point in Years 7 to 9, and at least one more week in Years 10 to 11.

In the second year of delivery (2025-26), the focus is on creating more opportunities for work experience, improving pathways and further developing resources for families, teachers and youth support networks.

It was announced earlier this year that 1,000 new T-level placements would be launched across the seven gateway areas, including at IBM, the Bee Network, the NHS and Autotrader.

Has the MBacc been successful?

Given that most of the MBacc’s aims are to get things in place for the end of the decade, it’s fair to say that it’s still early days.

In its year one progress report, Greater Manchester Combined Authority said the number of young people following technical education pathways had risen (though a lot of the data they reference predates the launch of the MBacc).

The report also said that more than 650 new 45-day industry placements had been generated.

In the early stages, however, uptake at schools and colleges was “slower than they’d hoped”, says Loic Menzies, education policy and research specialist and author of How Policy Happens.

“But that’s not surprising given it’s a pathway rather than a recognised qualification in itself.”

Menzies adds that while there has “certainly been interest from some colleges and in some schools, overall, it’s probably too early to make a judgement [about the success of the scheme] at this stage”.

91���� understands that more than 100 schools, colleges and providers have engaged in one or more MBacc projects since it began.

Menzies also points out that education and employers have consistently struggled to deliver more quality work experience in partnership in the past.

“It’s easy to talk about wanting to have a greater flow between education, or less of a barrier between employers and schools, but practically, delivering on this sort of agenda around the country is going to be really tricky,” he says.

What does it say about Burnham’s vision of education?

The MBacc is still only in its second year. Nevertheless, it does give some indications about what Burnham might seek to do with education if he were to become prime minister.

“This idea of a line of sight from education to occupation is clearly important to Andy, and the MBacc is a way of creating that, and also aligns with his strong interest in devolution in terms of local responsiveness,” Menzies says.

Under a Burnham premiership, we might therefore expect there to be some alignment of education policy with the results of the Milburn report, which said the school system is failing to prepare pupils for work.

And in a 2024 interview with 91����, Burnham, along with Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram, already called for mayors to have an increased role in overseeing schools in their regions.

Simons, meanwhile, suggests there are two beliefs “at the core of Burnham’s philosophy on education...that the education system ought to be more concerned about getting young people a job, and that local areas are best off knowing what the future career paths for young people are”.

These beliefs “come together in the MBacc - the closest thing there is to a Burnham touchstone policy and one he has discussed at length with ministers, MPs and peers, quietly, for over three years now”.

But, as Simons points out, those beliefs are “contentious” among people at both ends of the political spectrum.

“An education system that followed this philosophy would make a clear departure not just from a Goveite agenda - which valued knowledge for its own sake and saw jobs as the responsibility of universities and employers, rather than the school system - but also the [Bridget] Phillipson agenda, which focused on domestic consistency between local authority schools and academies over local flexibility,” he explains.

Could the MBacc be rolled out across the country?

According to Menzies, the next big question around the MBacc is to what extent the model could be translated to different contexts.

It may be difficult to implement in areas more dispersed than Manchester, he says, if that is even what Burnham would seek to do.

“It would have to be about encouraging other mayors to innovate pathways in a way that fits their context rather than being an extension of the MBacc itself,” he suggests.