Ian Sollom MP writes about the importance of the International Baccalaureate Diploma and why the cut in funding is a poor decision by the Government

"Education, education, education." When Tony Blair stated his top three priorities to the Labour Party conference in October 1996, it was a brilliant soundbite that is still remembered to this day. Nearly thirty years later, the contrast is stark: this Labour government has already taken nearly a year on its Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, a promised white paper on SEND reform keeps getting delayed, and in the recent Budget we found out that the Department for Education will see a real terms cut over the next 4 years – the second worst of any government department.

Some cuts are coming even sooner. On 1st October, 20 state schools around the country received letters from the Department for Education announcing that Large Programme Uplift funding for the International Baccalaureate (IB) would be removed from September 2026. No consultation. No warning. A £2.5 million saving from an education budget exceeding £100 billion – 0.0025% of annual spending.

One of those schools is Impington Village College. I met with Jo Sale, the Principal, and students there recently to discuss the impact and how they felt about the IB. The school - named the UK's top comprehensive by the Sunday Times for 2025 - has been clear it remains absolutely committed to continuing its IB programme after 30 years of delivering excellence. But losing £2,400 per student makes that commitment significantly harder.

The students I spoke with were passionate about what the IB gives them: breadth, critical thinking, confidence, and skills for life. They chose Impington specifically for this opportunity. The school will do everything possible to maintain that provision, but they shouldn't have to fight for resources to deliver the very excellence that earned them national recognition.

The government's justification is that it's prioritising funding for students taking four or more A-levels in maths, further maths, and sciences – an explicit focus on STEM subjects to build the skilled workforce the economy needs.

I'm a huge advocate for that agenda in principle. I support the Campaign for Mathematical Sciences and have pressed for expansion of University Maths Schools. I took five STEM A-levels myself.

But specialisation at 16 isn't for everyone.

Many aren't ready to narrow down so significantly, and the IB Diploma Programme also provides a brilliant platform for progression in STEM, requiring both mathematics and science to age 18, plus extended research and critical thinking components. If you want students taking multiple STEM subjects while developing the skills they need to succeed, the IB delivers exactly that.

This is particularly important for girls. Evidence shows early specialisation at 16 disproportionately pushes girls away from STEM: when girls achieve strong grades across subjects at GCSE – as they typically do – forcing them to choose means they more often don't select multiple sciences, even when perfectly capable.

The IB offers an alternative. Research from the Engineering Professors Council shows IB graduates are disproportionately women who excel in STEM degrees and are twice as likely to pursue further STEM study – a pathway to getting more women into male-dominated engineering fields.

Women make up just 15.7% of the engineering workforce, in jobs expected to grow faster than other occupations through 2030. There is a dark irony that Bridget Phillipson, holding both the Education and Women and Equalities briefs, is promoting STEM by cutting funding that helps keep more girls interested in STEM for longer.

It's also ironic that the Secretary of State claimed last month she wanted to "spread excellence from one school to another," yet the government is forcing Impington to compromise the very excellence she claims she wants to spread. Schools like Impington should be celebrated and supported, not forced into impossible choices about staffing and subject range.

The damage is already visible nationally: Tonbridge Grammar School, the Sunday Times IB School of the Year, announced it will scrap the IB because it cannot afford to continue. Currently, 76 independent schools offer the IB compared with just 20 state schools. This decision risks making it available only to those who can afford private fees.

In November 2006, in a speech marking the 10th anniversary of that famous soundbite, Blair articulated something just as important: "The key to education today is to personalise learning, to recognise different children have different abilities." The "monochrome" of traditional state education, he argued, should give way to genuine choice. He promised at least one school in every local authority would offer the International Baccalaureate.

Sadly, that ambition was never met, though we remain lucky to have one in our part of the world. I am convinced that Impington Village College will continue to deliver excellence, through the determination of staff and students. But the government should not be making that harder. If Ministers genuinely care about STEM participation, women in engineering, and spreading excellence rather than restricting it, they should reverse this decision.

This article was written for Ian’s monthly column in the Cambridge Independent.