The government’s commitment to creating 3 million apprenticeships in the current Parliament has not been abandoned, Anne Milton has insisted.

Following a dramatic drop in the number of apprenticeship starts in the months after the introduction of the levy, rhetoric from the Department for Education in recent months has focussed on the quality, rather then quantity, of apprenticeships being created.

In July, the government failed to publicly commit to its target.

But, speaking to Tes at WorldSkills UK Live today, the apprenticeships and skills minister said while she “will not sacrifice quality for numbers”, it was important to have a “stretching”, aspirational target – even if it would be “difficult to achieve”.

'Stretching' apprenticeships target

The intervention comes after it emerged that the DfE had commissioned renowned advertising agency M&C Saatchi to produce a campaign to revive the programme.

When asked if the 3 million target had been kicked into the long grass, Ms Milton said that it had not.

“I think you should always have a stretch target,” she said. “The difficulty for government is if they make themselves ambitious plans, give themselves stretching targets, they will be criticised for not meeting them.

'Ambitious and difficult to achieve'

“I think it’s a nonsense to criticise them, otherwise you’ve always got a poverty of aspiration. If the government had set a target of 1 million apprenticeships, you’re guaranteed to meet it, but what a poor aspiration. So I think it’s quite important to give yourself things that are ambitious and difficult to achieve, otherwise you’ll never achieve anything, will you?” When asked about whether the 3 million target was still achievable, she replied: “We’ll get what we get.”

Ms Milton asknowledged that the introduction of the levy and the transition from apprenticeship standards to frameworks had been “difficult for the sector to manage”.

She added: “It’s going well, it was never going to be done in a rush. It was always going to take time. I think business and the public sector are now adjusting.

“What we now need to do is get the right careers advice to young people so they can do what is right for them, and not what school or their familes expect them to do.”