Back to school with Lord Baker

Ben, an articulate 14-year-old hard at work in the school design and proto-typing centre, is explaining to Lord Baker of Dorking how 3D printing works. Baker, a former Tory education secretary, listens intently before declaring the technology ‘marvellous’. This coming July will mark the 25th anniversary of his leaving the Department for Education — but Lord Baker, who turns 80 this year, has never quite stopped the school reform that he started.

We’re at the University Technical College (UTC) in Sheffield, one of 17 such schools which has opened in recent years following the decision by Baker and his late friend Ron Dearing, the former Post Office boss, to make the remodelling of the English schools system their retirement project.

Baker is an extraordinary force of nature. Beyond the still slick hair and wide smile — lampooned to such good effect by Spitting Image and cartoonists in the 1980s — there is tenacity, energy and a determination not to be diverted when he is pursuing a pet project. After leaving the cabinet he also became a great defender of cartoonists and the role they play in cutting politicians down to size: he was one of the driving forces in the establishment of London’s Cartoon Museum.

When I met Baker in his office at Westminster seven years ago, he said he had an idea, which I thought was brilliant. For years the British have complained about a skills shortage — not surprisingly, given the appalling quality of our vocational schooling compared to that on offer in a country such as Germany. So why not establish new schools to take pupils from 14, offering them a high-quality technical education in schools supported by businesses? Pupils would spend the equivalent of two days a week acquiring hands-on skills in engineering, design, science or manufacturing, with the rest devoted to giving them a good grounding in the fundamentals.