Andy Burnham plans biggest schools overhaul in 15 years

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Andy Burnham is set to announce major education reform (AFP/Getty) AFP/Getty

Former health secretary Alan Milburn speaks to the media on the publication of the interim Milburn Report into Young People and Work (PA) independent.co.uk

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Andy Burnham is set to announce what his government calls the biggest overhaul of England’s schools in 15 years, with new “prestigious” technical pathways opening to pupils from age 14. According to The Independent, the plan ends a system that has steered schools toward university preparation at the expense of vocational training; the Evening Standard reports the new routes are intended to roll out from September 2028. Burnham is framing the change as a response to youth unemployment and educational exclusion, with more than one million young people now not in education, employment or training.

The reform is a direct challenge to the long-running political promise that mass university participation is the default route to prosperity. Burnham is explicitly positioning his approach against the Tony Blair-era target of pushing around half of school leavers into higher education, which critics say left vocational qualifications treated as second-tier. Under the new model, pupils in Year 10 would combine core academic subjects with technical education tied to local job markets, while spending time with employers to build work experience and contacts. The government is also signalling that the accountability system will be rewritten to match the policy: the Evening Standard says Ofsted inspections and performance measures will be adjusted to recognise schools that deliver high-quality technical education and support employability.

The plan sits alongside a broader tightening of the welfare state that Burnham has been advertising in parallel. The Independent notes he has argued for reducing the welfare bill by making benefits more conditional on seeking work, including for claimants with mental health issues such as anxiety and stress. That pairing matters because it links two levers—education design and benefit rules—into a single pipeline: schools are asked to produce job-ready teenagers, while the benefits system raises the cost of not taking a job. The winners, if the system works, are employers in sectors that struggle to recruit and local authorities that carry the social cost of young people who drift out of work and training. The risk is that “parity” becomes a rebranding exercise if funding and status continue to flow disproportionately to the academic track, or if employer placements become a bottleneck that varies sharply by region.

Burnham says the aim is “no dead ends” for young people leaving education. The first cohort, if the timetable holds, would start those technical routes in September 2028.