With the election drawing close, the main political parties are making clear their plans for apprenticeships if they win.
Here’s a summary of their policies on the vocational pathway:
Conservatives
- David Cameron plans to create 16,000 new apprenticeships
- Promises to create three million ‘training places’
- Apprenticeships to be high quality – equal to university degrees
Labour
- Labour promises to create 80,000 more apprenticeships
- 33,000 of these would be part of the High Speed 2 rail line project
- Every school leaver who ‘gets the grades’ is promised an apprenticeship (2 A-levels)
- Teens will be given face-to-face careers advice
- Young people will be steered towards apprenticeships over university
Liberal Democrats
- Expand apprenticeships and develop national colleges for vocational skills
- End snobbery around apprenticeships, which he thinks comes from adults, rather than young people.
- Want to double the two million apprenticeships they created under the coalition
