Despite cuts, my department is funding 50,000 extra high level apprenticeships this year - vital for a manufacturing revival.
Giving priority to higher level apprenticeships in higher education policy would be a start.
Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, higher level apprenticeships should become a priority.
Higher level apprenticeships delivered by employers and universities might well be a perfect solution.
Accountancy, financial services, law and IT are among the other higher level apprenticeships.
Ucas should become a clearing house for apprenticeships, starting with higher level apprenticeships, as well as for higher education places.
The figures for 2009/10 to 2010/11 show a welcome increase in apprenticeships for young people and in higher level apprenticeships.
According to official figures, just under 3,000 care workers started the qualification in the last academic year, representing 30% of all higher level apprenticeships begun in 2012-13.
Higher level apprenticeships can be a real choice if universities, employers and policymakers are able to construct new degree level frameworks and offer them within the jobs and workplaces that increasingly demand higher levels of practical learning.
Way is confident that the changes, along with the introduction of more higher level apprenticeships, offering people the opportunity to train for degree-level qualifications, will bring "a whole raft of other employers who only employ people with high-level skills into apprenticeships for the first time".
However, with this research showing that for many graduates, the costs of university education outweigh its personal economic benefits, we need a much stronger focus on creating more high-quality alternative pathways into the workplace, such as higher level apprenticeships, so we really do achieve parity of esteem between the two routes".
