The Conservatives will promise to replace “fraudulent degrees” with 100,000 apprenticeships every year by the end of the next parliament if they win the general election.
Rishi Sunak will on Wednesday outline the plan to replace “worst performing” courses with high-skilled apprenticeships, which he says will provide “more opportunities and greater financial security”.
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Making the announcement, Mr Sunak will say: “Improving education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for increasing life chances. So it’s not fair for some university courses to fleece young people.
“Thanks to our plan, apprenticeships are of a much higher quality than they were under the Labor Party. And now we will create 100,000 more, putting an end to fraudulent degrees and offering our young people the job opportunities and financial security they need to thrive.
“That’s the choice in this election: the Tories, with our clear plan to grow the economy and give people the opportunities they need for a secure future, or Labour, who have no plan and would take us back to square zero.”
A new law will give the Office for Students powers to identify courses with the highest dropout rates, the lowest progression to postgraduate jobs and the lowest earning potential, and then close them.
The party will then continue its existing measures to “boost uptake” of apprenticeships – including funding the cost of training some young apprentices in small and medium-sized businesses – as well as working with the creative sector to find new routes for people to train.
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But while the Conservatives boasted that they had offered 5.8 million internships since taking office in 2010, Labor claimed the party had halved the number offered since 2015.
Labour’s education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said: “It is ridiculous that the Tories, who presided over the halving of apprenticeships for young people, are now announcing this.
“Why on earth should parents and young people believe they will create training opportunities now, after 14 years of failing to provide young people with the opportunities and skills needed to grow our economy?”
The Liberal Democrats also condemned the Conservatives’ policy announcement, with their education spokeswoman, Munira Wilson, saying the party had “broken the apprenticeship system”.
“Shockingly low wages for those in apprenticeships will remain, doing nothing to encourage more people to take up apprenticeships or tackle rising school dropout rates,” she added.
“This treatment of apprentices as second-class workers will only continue under the Conservatives.”
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Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey will launch his party’s local campaign in Wales on Wednesday, committing £1 billion in extra funding for agriculture.
He will say: “British farmers are the best in the business, but Tory neglect has brought many farmers to their knees. Rishi Sunak takes farmers for granted.
“This election gives Wales the unique opportunity to show the Conservatives the door by voting for the Liberal Democrats who will defend the best of Welsh agriculture.”
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The Labor Party will focus its campaign on the NHSwith Sir Keir Starmer pledging to clear the backlog of patients waiting more than 18 weeks for NHS treatment within five years.
Measures will include doubling the number of scanners, utilizing spare private sector capacity – at no cost to patients – and delivering what the Labor Party claims will be “the biggest expansion of NHS staffing in history”.
Meanwhile, the SNP will call on Labor to return the railways to public ownership if they win the next election and introduce a major infrastructure investment package to “reverse Tory-imposed cuts”.
At a campaign event, Prime Minister John Swinney will say: “Keir Starmer has spent his entire career shying away from traditional left-of-centre values such as public ownership – and belittling left-wing voters by leaning right and adopting conservative policies.
“But we cannot afford more of the same – Westminster has inflicted austerity, Brexit and a cost of living crisis on the people of Scotland – and it is time for a genuine alternative.”
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