Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:21 pm on 14 May 2019.
I thank the Member for that question. Of course he is right and knows from his own direct previous experience that bringing the workplace and study together has very long been part of the way that we provide futures for people in Wales. The degree apprenticeship programme is a new initiative, Llywydd; 210 apprentices became the first to study in the new programme in September of last year and another 210 or so will add to that programme in September of this year. That will test the two frameworks to which David Rees referred. We are looking actively, while that is happening, at other places where that could be expanded, and he's right to point to the field of social care as somewhere where we are always trying to raise the status of the profession through registration and through education and training. We will need to learn from the experience of these initial attempts. There's no point in starting something off in order to learn from it unless you're prepared to take the time that learning requires, but we are actively looking to find other ways in which we can build on what we feel confident will be the success of the programme.