University Secures Funding to Boost Degree Apprenticeship Opportunities

A range of new degree apprenticeships will be created at the University of Lincoln, UK after it successfully secured more than £165,000 pounds from the Office for Students (OfS).

The University will use the funding, part of the OfS’s degree apprenticeships fund, to offer new degree apprenticeships across Health and Social Care, Lincoln International Business School, and the National Centre for Food Manufacturing.

These will include: Project Manager; Social Worker; Control Technical Support Engineer; Manufacturing Engineer; Electrical or Electronic Technical Support Engineer, and; Food and Drink Advanced Engineer

The funding is recognition of the University’s commitment to widening participation and offering students a range of learning options.

Professor Sharon Green, Director of Apprenticeships and Skills said: “We are delighted to receive this funding from the Office for Students, which recognises our ambitions for growth enabling us to develop our national apprenticeship provision. Our project works closely with employers across key sectors including Social Care and the Food and Drink Manufacturing sector, to provide opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds who access degree-level apprenticeship skills and training, to develop their careers.

“There are so many benefits to becoming an apprentice at the University of Lincoln. We can help tackle workforce development challenges, working with our employers to create bespoke and relevant education programmes whilst raising aspirations, contributing to communities, and fulfilling the individual potential or our apprentices.”

John Blake, Director for Fair Access and Participation at the OfS, said: “‘Degree apprenticeships can provide a beneficial alternative route for students in higher education, which bridges the spaces between traditional study and the workplace. Our initial £12 million investment will support universities and colleges to accelerate their efforts to grow and develop these courses.

“We set universities and colleges a challenge to deliver an extensive range of degree apprenticeships that students from all backgrounds could access. They responded with a wide range of innovative and ambitious bids. This is a major intervention by the OfS and I am excited to see how the successful bids from the first wave of applications expand and enhance courses on offer to students.”