SHADOW Education Secretary Stephen Twigg praised Burnley's University Technical College, which opened last month, on a visit to East Lancashire.

The Labour chief, who had a whistlestop tour of two schools in Pendle yesterday, said UTCs, like the one in Trafalgar Street, was a 'good thing'.

He said: “The first UTC was set up in Stoke under the Labour Government and it’s doing very well. That idea of a high quality technical education where you have a university, employer and the school all working together is a really good thing.”

But he questioned the influx of free schools in certain areas of the country, adding: “Free schools need to be created in the areas where there is a real need for extra school places.

“Sometimes they are being created where there are spare places in good local schools and in a time of scarce resources that doesn’t make sense.

“The programme isn’t meeting the real need that there is in many areas of the country, and I worry that there isn’t always a proper local engagement consultation when free schools set up.”

Mr Twigg, who represents Liverpool West Derby, listened to students at West Craven High School, Barnoldswick, and Fisher More, Colne, during two round table discussions.

Mr Twigg said: “I visit schools a lot and get the chance to meet young people. But I had a serious amount of time with the students here.

“They are concerned about the direct impact the government policies have on them on exams, on tuition fees for higher education.

“They were raising real, practical education issues where politicians can make a difference but where politicians also sometimes get it wrong.”

One issue the students were keen to raise was grade boundaries after last year’s controversy.

Mr Twigg said: “They asked about grade boundaries when exams are assessed and of course this all arose from the fiasco last year with GCSE English when your grade depended on whether you were assessed in January or in June.

“I think that it’s created a generation of young people who are aware of things that I certainly wasn’t aware off when I sat exams at school.”