The Government is urging employers to help create 100,000 more apprentices by the year 2014, pressing firms to say “you’re hired” to people eager to be trained.

Business Secretary Vince Cable marked the start of Apprenticeship Week by underlining the Government’s commitment to increase the budget for apprenticeships to over £1,400 million in 2011-12.

He urged 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the next generation of highly skilled workers would be key to sustainable economic growth, and called for an end to “outdated values” that have seen vocational learning branded a poor relation to academic study.

“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 launched 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, including engineering for the Royal Navy and Network Rail.

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 apprenticeships 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.

British Airways announced it will expand its engineering apprenticeship scheme, with the inclusion of a fourth partner in Uxbridge College.

The airline said it will be looking for 120 students, up from 90 students in 2010, recruiting them from Kingston College, Brooklands College, Farnborough College of Technology and Uxbridge College.

Garry Copeland, BA’s director of engineering, said: “We are delighted to be continuing the work we started last year. It is great to have Uxbridge College on board, and the expansion of the scheme shows that we are committed to investing in people, and to bringing the very best talent into BA Engineering.”

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.

*SEE THIS THURSDAY’S BIRMINGHAM POST FOR A NEW CAMPAIGN AIMED AT BRINGING MIDLANDS BUSINESSES AND APPRENTICES TOGETHER.