Unilever, Legal & General and Burberry are among the 250 employers that are to start offering degree-level apprenticeship schemes for the first time after being awarded Government funding.
The winning bids were unveiled today by Business Secretary Vince Cable when he visited TNT UK, in Bodmin, Cornwall. The parcel delivery company is to work with rival DHL and other members of a partnership group to create 250 apprenticeship places. Participants will study for a qualification in Express Logistics from Hull College.
The £18.7 million-worth of awards are to be divvied out from a £25 million Higher Apprenticeship Fund that was first announced in July. It is expected to create about 19,000 new places over the next two years in sectors ranging from construction to insurance and emergency care. A second round of bids will also be invited early in the New Year.
Cable said: “Investing in skills is central to our drive to boost business and productivity and make the UK more competitive. By radically expanding the number of degree-level apprenticeships for young people, we will put practical learning on a level footing with academic study.”
Some 19 partnerships, which include both employers and training providers, will receive a total of £17 million, while a further £1.7 million has gone on two ‘Trailblazer’ projects.
These are focused on IT and science as well as engineering and manufacturing and are expected to create 6,000 on-the-job training places. They were not subject to the competitive tendering process.
Examples of some of 19 partnership deals, meanwhile, include the creation of Level 4 and 5 science frameworks by Cogent, the UK’s industry skills body for chemicals, pharmaceuticals, nuclear, oil and gas, petrol and polymer businesses. Some 430 places on the scheme will be provided by employers such as Unilever, Fujifilm and Sellafield.
Skillset, the sector skills council for the creative industries, is also developing a Level 4 apprenticeship scheme covering advertising, creative and digital media, fashion and textiles. Burberry, PMA and brand communications agency, Starcom MediaVest, intend to offer 500 apprenticeship places in this area.
But the Chancellor announced a review of the current system in Tuesday’s Autumn Statement as part of an attempt to try and understand how it could be made more useful to employers. The move came in response to recent criticism over the quality of current schemes and concern that thousands of new places had actually been given to existing staff rather than new jobs for young workers being created.
