Degree apprenticeships: the best of both worlds?

For National Apprenticeship Week, Fiona McIntyre looks at how changes to degree apprenticeships could affect universities.

In an October report from the House of Commons education committee on the best approach to apprenticeships, Robert Halfon, the Conservative chair of the committee, urged the young Institute for Apprenticeships (IfA) to make the degree pathway “a flagship for the apprenticeship system”.

The government disagreed. It said in its response to the report, “We do not prioritise degree apprenticeships over other apprenticeships because the reforms are employer-led, so the apprenticeships developed are those that employers have said they want.”