By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:14 PM on 7th February 2011

• Businesses including BT, Jaguar and Land Rover to roll out thousands of training opportunities
• Microsoft promises to create 1,000 apprenticeships in next three years
• Virgin Media and British Airways also back scheme

Vince Cable will announce that an extra 100,000 apprenticeships will be created by 2014, pressing firms to take on more young workers.

The Business Secretary will announce plans to increase the budget for apprenticeships to over £1.4bn in 2011/12.

He wants employers to follow the lead of firms such as British Airways, British Gas, BT, Superdrug, Jaguar Land Rover and Proctor and Gamble, which are offering thousands of places to budding apprentices.

Dr Cable said that investment in training the next generation of highly skilled workers would be key to sustainable economic growth, and called for an end to 'outdated values' that have seen vocational learning branded a poor relation to academic study.

He will say today: 'I want to reinforce the message to business and young people that apprenticeships are a first-class way to start a career.

'That is why my department has pledged to work to create some 75,000 additional adult places than those promised by the previous government.

'Some of the most prestigious companies in England - large and small, public and private - employ apprentices and benefit from doing so.

'More than 30 per cent of Rolls-Royce apprentices have progressed to senior management roles within the company, and 80 per cent of those who employ apprentices agree that they make the workplace more productive.

'I'm calling on more businesses to follow this lead.'

Dr Cable will launch Apprenticeship Week at BT's head office in London and will later visit apprentices at HMS Sultan, a training base in Gosport, Portsmouth, to meet apprentices in a range of industries.

Skills Minister John Hayes announced that greater recognition and status will be given to those who successfully complete their apprenticeships, and made it clear that apprentices can progress to higher stages of learning through the programme, including to university.

'Our ultimate goal remains to see apprentices achieve equivalent esteem and status with university graduates, so that a place on an apprenticeship scheme is as valued as one at a university,' he said.

Government plans to triple tuition fees to £9,000 a year from 2012 are fuelling an interest in apprenticeships, according to an ICM Omnibus poll commissioned by Pearson Training for National Apprenticeship Week.

More than half of the 1,100 people questioned said the rising cost of higher education has made them think more positively about apprenticeships as a career choice for young people, and amongst 16-18-year-olds this figure was 55 per cent.

And more than two fifths - 46 per cent - said higher costs had made them more likely to consider doing apprenticeship themselves, or recommending it to their child.

Nearly six in ten (57 per cent) said that young people who have completed an apprenticeship will find getting a job easier than a university graduate, while just a third (34 per cent) think a university education is worth the money, not matter how much it costs.

Fiona McBride, Chief Executive Officer of Pearson Professional and Vocational Training said: 'This research firmly dispels the myth that apprenticeships are in some way a second class option for young people.

'It reveals what we believe is a sea change in public opinion about the value of vocational learning, and demonstrates a widespread understanding of the important role that apprenticeships play in setting young people on the path towards not just a job, but a sustainable and fulfilling career.'

Nine out of ten employers see apprentices as key to the future success of their business over the next two years, according to a new report by vocational education organisation City & Guilds.

Unite called on the Government to make more funding available to make manufacturing apprenticeships more attractive to young people.

General secretary Len McCluskey said: 'The government needs to make sure that funding is available to schools and careers services to show that there is nothing wrong with manufacturing.'

Prime Minister David Cameron said: 'Apprenticeships offer a fantastic opportunity for people to gain the skills they need for the jobs of the future, equipping the country for our goal to build long-term sustainable growth.

'That is why despite some difficult decisions on spending; we are boosting the number of apprenticeships. We think this is absolutely vital not just to help people into work for the short term but to make sure they can have successful long term careers.

'With hundreds of events around the country taking place, Apprenticeship Week is a great opportunity for more businesses, young people and potential apprentices to get involved, and benefit from all that apprenticeships bring.'