Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to promote degree apprenticeships as a route to an undergraduate degree in (a) Leicester and (b) the East Midlands.

Degree and degree-level apprenticeships offer people of all ages and from all backgrounds the chance to earn while they learn and access a range of professions.

We are continuing to promote these apprenticeships as a genuine, high-quality alternative to traditional academic study, and want to make sure we reach those who might not otherwise have considered higher education as an option.

Our Five Cities project continues to promote the uptake of all apprenticeships by Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in Leicester, whilst our Opportunities Through Apprenticeships project is working to identify skills gaps and encourage new higher-level provision within Nottingham.

To support employers in raising awareness of opportunities in their businesses across the whole of England, we have worked with the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) to develop an online higher and degree apprenticeship vacancy listing. The most recent update was published in February’s National Apprenticeship Week for starts in 2020. It includes over a thousand vacancies from employers in a range of sectors, from aeronautical engineering to town planning.

Representatives from the National Apprenticeship Service also attended 30 UCAS exhibitions in 2019, engaging with around 10,000 young people, their parents and careers advisers. This work will continue during 2020 alongside our wider communications and marketing activity to raise the profile of apprenticeships, including the second phase of our ‘Fire It Up’ campaign. A number of the apprentices who feature in advertising throughout the second phase are undertaking degree or degree-level apprenticeships.