Unis 'already offer technical degrees'

Miliband said if his party wins the next election it will ensure "equal status for vocational qualifications from school to university and beyond".

University think-tank million+said that the next government should build on the work that universities are already doing to deliver professionally and technically focused courses.

Professor Michael Gunn, Vice-Chancellor of Staffordshire University and Chair of million+ , said:

"Modern universities are well-equipped to respond to this agenda and technical degrees may well attract more people to the advantages of being a graduate and help develop the higher apprenticeship route with which many universities are already engaged.

"However, there is now a competition about vocational education between the political parties, and the next Government whatever its colour must build on what is already being delivered by universities rather than seek to tear up the rule-book.”

"A-levels are not the only route into university and the idea that students only progress to higher education when they are 18 is out-of-date. The majority of today’s students already have a vocational qualification when they start university. A third of students enter university for the first time when they are over 21 and many degrees are professionally and vocationally focused."

Miliband is due to unveil Labour's new policy in a speech to the Sutton Trusttoday.

"For too long governments have believed there is only one way to success through education, which is to follow the conventional academic route: to do GCSEs, A-levels, a traditional academic subject at university and then on to career," he is expected to say.

"But that kind of aspiration cannot be limited only to those young people who choose a conventional academic route."

He will suggest young people should able to “earn and learn” by combining their degree study with working in a vocational environment.

Conor Ryan, Director of Research at the Sutton Trust, said: "In other European countries, particularly in Germany and Switzerland, three-year, good-quality apprenticeships are a serious option for all young people. Despite some recent improvements, we still have a mountain to climb to match ambitions."