Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support the uptake of apprenticeships and technical education.

The department wants apprenticeships and technical education to be part of career conversations in every school so that young people can access the opportunities they deserve.

We have set clear requirements through strengthened legislation and statutory guidance, backed by over £30 million of investment in 2024/25 to support schools and colleges to improve careers provision for young people.

Since January 2023, schools have been required to offer at least six opportunities for pupils to meet providers of technical education or apprenticeships, during years 8 to 13.

We promote apprenticeships in schools and colleges through our Apprenticeships Support and Knowledge Programme (ASK). During the 2023/24 academic year, ASK engaged with 2,366 schools and colleges. The ASK sessions, spanning awareness assemblies, mock assessment centres and interview workshops, reached over 575,000 students, as well as almost 37,000 parents and carers.

Young people aged 13 to 18 can discover their career options via the National Careers Service website, which can be accessed at https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/ and includes around 800 job profiles. Young people can access information and advice via webchat and a telephone helpline which is supported by local community-based career advisers. This is supported by the Skills for Life campaign, ‘It all starts with skills’, which promotes a range of priority skills programmes to young people, including apprenticeships, T Levels and Higher Technical Qualifications. We have collaborated with UCAS so that pupils can now explore apprenticeship vacancies alongside university courses on the service. We are confident this is responding to demand, with the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) reporting that nearly three in five young people in years 9-12 are considering apprenticeships.

These interventions are part of a national careers system that is driving improvements in careers advice and work experience for young people. 93% of secondary schools and colleges are in a Careers Hub, linking with networks of employers and apprenticeship providers.

Through Careers Hubs, we are using data and front-line insight to support conversations about what is preventing the take-up of technical and vocational pathways at the local level, enabling solutions to be devised by local partners.

Ofsted’s review of careers, published in 2023, found that most providers are making good progress towards improving students’ access to options such as apprenticeships and technical qualifications. In addition, the latest data from a survey of the career readiness of 230,000 students shows that they are more than twice as likely to understand apprenticeships by the time they take their GCSEs, compared to students in year 7. Awareness of year 11 students is 80% and almost on a par with A Levels at 84%.