The Centre for Education and Training (CET) at Ai Group has over several years advocated for the development and implementation of higher level or degree apprenticeships. This has been in response to strong demand from industry – who are seeking higher skilled employees with both technical and knowledge-based skills, particularly in engineering.

While valuing both trade and university qualifications, employers have long identified that university graduates with an understanding of/or background in trade skills make better engineers, because they have an appreciation not just of design needs but also of how those designs can be manufactured and
serviced. Even for those university graduates with no need for trade skills, employers recognise the value of combining university studies with relevant work that provides an apprentice with immediate application to what they are learning.

CET is strongly supportive of AQF7 being delivered through vocational education and training (VET). In doing so it is important that there is a logic and coherence within the AQF, and that there is complementarity with broader reforms such as qualification reform.