Degree-level apprenticeships enabling framework

Introduction

This enabling framework is designed for key system stakeholders involved in the development and delivery of degree apprenticeships, including employers, industry and professional bodies, tertiary education providers, Industry Skills Boards (ISBs) and government.

It is intended to assist these key system players to align their roles, responsibilities, and investments to support high-quality, work-based degree programmes that are accessible, sustainable, and fit for the future of learning and work in New Zealand.

This paper builds on and extends the systems gap analysis report commissioned by ConCOVE in 2023, drawing on experience from pilots of degree apprenticeships.

Purpose

The purpose of this enabling framework is to:

• Identify and articulate the key conditions and system settings required to enable degree apprenticeships to succeed and scale.
• Support stakeholders to understand their specific roles and responsibilities.
• Provide a practical roadmap of quick wins and bolder steps for each system condition.
• Contribute to a shared language and common understanding across the sector.

Context

New Zealand's tertiary education and training system is under pressure. Employers across sectors have raised concerns about the relevance and responsiveness of formal qualifications, with some increasingly investing in offshore, in-house, or informal training models. At the same time, provider funding is constrained despite rising delivery costs, learner achievement remains uneven, and the promise of lifelong learning is not yet a reality for many.

Yet New Zealand also has strong foundations. Our universities are internationally respected, and we have a long history of delivering education in the workplace. Many employers are familiar with training processes and invest significantly in staff development. Workplace-based learning has demonstrated strong post-study employment outcomes.

The challenge is to build on these strengths to create a system that genuinely supports degree-level apprenticeships at scale — one that is accessible to diverse learners, financially viable for providers and employers, and credible to professional bodies and regulators.

Systems change

This enabling framework is organised around the six conditions of systems change. The key advantage of this model is that it helps us tackle problems by changing the underlying conditions that keep them in place, especially those that create or reinforce inequity.

True systems change means being open to changing not just the system, but also how we think and act within it. For funders and policymakers, this means recognising that their own assumptions and behaviours may need to shift too.

The model also shows that lasting change happens at three levels:

• Structural change (like policies, practices, and how resources are distributed).
• Relational change (how people relate to one another and how power is shared).
• Transformative change (shifting mindsets, beliefs, and assumptions about education and work).

Why systems change matters

Degree apprenticeships cannot succeed through piecemeal adjustments. They require coordinated change across six interdependent system conditions — and weakness in any one condition undermines the whole.

The current system actively works against degree apprenticeships:

• Policy frameworks signal that apprenticeships "stop" at level 4, rendering degree options invisible and illegitimate.
• Everyday practices in teaching, assessment and employer engagement remain anchored to campus-centred delivery, treating workplace learning as an add-on rather than the organising principle.
• Funding flows privilege provider-led models and offer no recognition of the dual-support costs, shared delivery, or employer investment that degree apprenticeships require.
• Relationships between providers and employers are often advisory and episodic rather than co-designed and co-delivered.
• Power over curriculum, assessment, and accreditation remains concentrated in provider and regulatory hands, with limited employer and learner agency.
• Mental models across the system — from school counsellors to policymakers — still code apprenticeships as lower-status "trades training."

The six conditions

The framework addresses each condition in turn:

1. Policies — formal rules, priorities, and strategies set by government and its agencies.
2. Practices — everyday actions, processes, and habits of organisations and individuals.
3. Resource flows — how funding, staffing, infrastructure, and information are allocated.
4. Relationships and connections — networks, trust, and collaborative behaviours between stakeholders.
5. Power dynamics — how decision-making authority, influence, and accountability are distributed.
6. Mental models — deeply held beliefs, assumptions, and narratives about education.

Policies

Policies in this context relate to formal rules, priorities, and strategies set by the government and its agencies that shape how tertiary education is delivered and funded. They influence which programmes are possible, which learners are prioritised, and how institutions and employers are incentivised to participate in new models.

Current settings normalise sub-degree apprenticeships

Current policy settings render degree apprenticeships "non-normal."

Where the gap shows up in legislation

In New Zealand, there is a long-standing view that apprenticeship training and programmes of advanced learning are fundamentally different. A key element of the Education and Training Act distinguishes between:

• Institutions. The Act differentiates by institutional type. The functions of polytechnics (section 315) explicitly include responding to the needs of local communities and industries in their regions, while the characteristics of universities (section 281) emphasise advanced learning and research but do not explicitly include an industry-engagement duty analogous to that of polytechnics.
• Modes of education. The Act creates explicit pathways and funding mechanisms for apprenticeships at sub-degree level (through the New Zealand Apprenticeships scheme), while degree-level work-based learning has no equivalent dedicated framework.

Government funding guidelines for tertiary education providers also centre apprenticeship training on vocational education, with only one general reference in the current TEC plan guidance to the desirability of more work-integrated learning or employment-based learning for all higher education priorities.

When flexibility is a bug, not a feature

The absence of a policy framework has some advantages, particularly the opportunity for actors to forge their own models and approaches in potentially innovative ways without needing to navigate bespoke regulatory and other requirements. In practice, however, it appears to be a default assumption of policymakers and regulators that degree apprenticeships are not a priority — or not possible — leading to a kind of regulatory neglect.

Policies: Recommended changes

Making degree apprenticeships a priority

Making clear that degree or higher apprenticeships are a priority for investment in tertiary education would underscore their potential contribution and provide a more explicit signal to tertiary education providers.

NZQA degree approval guidelines

NZQA defines the requirements for approval of degrees and related qualifications through guidelines, most recently published in July 2025. These guidelines make extensive reference to work-integrated learning, delivery in work-based settings and work-based components. These guidelines provide a valuable foundation for the recognition of degree apprenticeships.

It would be desirable, however, to make specific references to degree apprenticeships in the guidelines for approval of degrees, including highlighting practical examples of how tertiary education providers have gone about creating degree apprenticeships.

A national framework

The framework should draw on proven elements from higher/degree apprenticeship guidance in countries like Austria, Australia (as these are developed), France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, while aligning with NZQA's existing programme approval, accreditation and monitoring settings.

Throughout, it will be essential to protect the academic freedom of tertiary education providers and devise arrangements that support universities and other forms of tertiary education providers to maintain their distinctive characteristics.

TEC should request advice from Industry Skills Boards about how degree apprenticeships can be best integrated in the network of provision for their industries. NZQA guidelines on the approval of degrees note that Workforce Development Councils may be a key partner in this process.

Practices

Practices refer to the everyday actions, processes, and habits of organisations and individuals that shape how education and training are delivered. These include teaching and learning methods, industry engagement approaches, learner support systems, assessment design, and how programmes are developed and managed. Practices influence whether degree apprenticeships are implemented with fidelity, quality, and learner success in mind.

Current delivery norms marginalise degree apprenticeships

Current delivery norms that marginalise degree apprenticeships:

• Campus-first design: lectures, tutorials, assessments drive the timetable; workplace activity fits around them.
• Work-integrated learning as a discrete component, not programme-long design.
• Employer engagement remains advisory and episodic, not co-design and co-delivery.
• Assessment privileges academic outputs over authentic workplace evidence.
• Role confusion for learners juggling employee/student expectations without explicit protections.
• Variable supervision standards and unclear escalation processes.

These patterns make degree apprenticeships look like an awkward exception within existing systems rather than a legitimate, mainstreamed pathway.

Quick wins

• TEC should require, as part of its annual guidance, that investment plans include a section addressing how providers are supporting work-based and employer-embedded learning.
• Providers should adopt tripartite review structures as a standard practice for all degree apprenticeships.
• The sector should develop shared resources (templates, protocols, evidence frameworks) that reduce the cost of developing new programmes.

More sophisticated approaches

The more sophisticated approaches will be digitally enabled. Providers that are new to degree apprenticeships might consider partnerships with others that have more experience of work-integrated learning, such as the work-based learning divisions of the industry skills boards. Engaging with existing networks like WILNZ (Work-Integrated Learning New Zealand) can also help with insights and draw on implementation experience.

Providers and employers that are building new degree apprenticeship capability should invest in professional development for academic staff and workplace supervisors, including how to design and assess work-based learning, and how to work collaboratively across organisational boundaries.

Shifting approval and accreditation

The challenge we should take on is to shift away from a tertiary education provider-centric model of approval and accreditation to one that recognises the integrated role of employers and industry more explicitly. Approval processes need to deeply interrogate how employers and providers share responsibility for delivery and assessment, rather than treating employers as an extension of the provider.

A national community of practice for degree apprenticeship implementation would support peer learning and innovation in delivery practice.

Resource flows

Resource flows refer to how funding, staffing, infrastructure, and information are allocated and distributed across the system. These flows determine which types of education are financially viable, which organisations are incentivised to participate, and whether learners and employers can access the support they need. Without fit-for-purpose resource flows, degree apprenticeships will remain small-scale or unsustainable.

Current funding arrangements undervalue degree apprenticeships

The funding system treats degree apprenticeships as identical to campus-based degrees. Government subsidies vary by qualification level and subject area; learners pay fees (often loan-funded). Employer contributions beyond taxation are incidental. All employer costs (direct, indirect, opportunity) are borne at the point they arise. Learners bear costs (travel, parking, forgone work), with these costs often cited as a key barrier. No mechanism exists to track degree apprenticeship enrolments or outcomes.

Quick wins — recognising the costs of degree apprenticeships

• Extend the Apprenticeship Boost scheme to include degree apprenticeships. This would ensure that the cost of employing these apprentices is not a barrier to their uptake by employers.
• The government could consider capping the number of apprenticeship places covered by this subsidy and/or time-limiting the support, to manage costs while stimulating demand.
• TEC should establish a mechanism to track and report on degree apprenticeship enrolments and completion rates.
• Providers should be supported to develop standardised cost models that make the case for degree apprenticeships to employers.

Bolder steps — addressing the resourcing challenges

We can also take some bolder steps to increase the uptake of degree apprenticeships. These include:

• Exploring tax credits or payroll levy arrangements that create a more direct employer stake in degree apprenticeship funding.
• Establishing a dedicated funding stream for degree apprenticeships that recognises the dual-support costs of co-delivery.
• Procurement levers: Requiring suppliers bidding to deliver large-scale infrastructure projects to commit to degree apprenticeship participation. Large-scale infrastructure projects require a skilled workforce with a wide range of professional skills.

However, these risks can be mitigated by working with higher-performing tertiary providers that have a track record of delivering good outcomes and a recognition that they will have a strong incentive to create a pipeline of enrolments to sustain the programmes beyond the third year.

Relationships and connections

Relationships and connections refer to the networks, trust, and collaborative behaviours between stakeholders in the system, including learners, employers, educators, iwi/Māori partners, professional bodies, and government agencies. Strong relationships enable shared ownership, smooth transitions, and mutual accountability across the system.

Current state — a work in progress

Existing models of tertiary education delivery assume a degree of engagement between tertiary providers, employers and professional organisations. Some of these relationships are strong, robust and long-standing. Others may be more nascent, which is more likely to be the case where partners are looking to forge new degree apprenticeship pathways.

It is also more likely that tertiary providers will tend to position industry and employers in an advisory role. This approach makes sense given their respective roles in most education and training programmes, but degree apprenticeships work best when power is more equally shared.

Three practical steps

Step 1: Build early and deliberate employer relationships Providers should invest in dedicated employer relationship managers for degree apprenticeship programmes, with clear briefs for co-design and co-delivery rather than consultation.

Step 2: Strengthen regional and sectoral networks Regional or sectoral consortia — bringing together providers, employers, industry bodies, and Māori and Pacific partners — reduce transaction costs and build shared ownership.

Step 3: Enable dual-support models Purposefully enable dual-support models where both an academic advisor and a workplace mentor work with each learner. These approaches recognise that an apprentice will have multiple people in their working and academic lives who have an interest in their success.

Depending on the size and complexity of a business, an apprentice may have relationships with their employer, supervisor, internal training advisor and human resources staff, and in the academic context with the programme coordinator, academic and tutorial staff and learner support staff. These multiple, sometimes overlapping, relationships mean that tertiary providers and employers need to work collaboratively to curate the relationships between these support people.

Bolder steps — actively facilitating collaboration

We can also take some bolder steps to increase the uptake of degree apprenticeships by hard-wiring requirements for co-governance into programme oversight and management and establishing regional or sectoral degree apprenticeship hubs.

Requiring that industry and tertiary providers collaborate in the design, delivery, and evaluation of degree apprenticeships is a way to address perceptions that education and training are misaligned with the needs of employers. Co-governance arrangements that shift the conversation from industry as advisors to industry as decision-makers are in line with government expectations that leadership and involvement by industry is enhanced.

Power dynamics

Power dynamics refer to how decision-making authority, influence, and accountability are distributed across the system. In traditional tertiary education, power often rests with education providers and regulators. For degree apprenticeships to succeed, power must be more equitably shared with employers, learners, community partners, and industry, particularly in the design, delivery, and governance of programmes.

Current state — a work in progress

The government holds considerable power in tertiary education in New Zealand, with decisions about the objectives of tertiary education, funding, including public subsidies, fees charged to learners, and learner support, regulation about what education products and services are available, and where funding is directed.

Learner choice and the willingness of employers to allow their workplaces to be used for training are important triggers for funding and supply of education and training, but employers have limited influence over curriculum design, assessment standards, or learner support models.

Quick wins

• Funders should expect that investment plans from tertiary providers include jointly developed sections relating to degree apprenticeships. This approach reflects the need for deep integration between the worlds of education and industry in delivering these types of programmes.
• One option would be to require co-designed proposals with industry or professional groups.

Bolder steps — purposefully creating new arrangements

We can also take some bolder steps to increase the uptake of degree apprenticeships by:

• Recognising the costs incurred by industry and professional associations in contributing to programme design and governance.
• Creating governance mechanisms to oversee the roll-out of degree apprenticeships.
• Extending the statutory obligations for ISBs and tertiary providers to share power with employers and learners in the governance and delivery of degree apprenticeships.

Mental models

Mental models are the deeply held beliefs, assumptions, and narratives that shape how people interpret the purpose and value of education. These include perceptions of what a "real" degree looks like, who higher education is for, and how learning should be delivered. Shifting mental models is essential to making degree apprenticeships a mainstream, valued pathway.

Current state — a work in progress

Across New Zealand's tertiary system, the dominant picture of a "proper" degree remains academic, campus-centred, and lecture-led. Workplace learning at degree level is tolerated as an adjunct (placements, projects) rather than recognised as an equivalent, let alone primary, mode of delivery. Apprenticeships are still coded as lower-status "trades training", so the term itself signals "sub-degree" to many students, parents, teachers, and even some policymakers.

Work and study are commonly viewed as sequential. Study precedes work. So integrated earn-and-learn pathways are misread as diluted — or as catering for those who couldn't "make it" in a traditional degree.

Quick wins — changing the narrative

• Use case studies and graduate stories to demonstrate that degree apprentices achieve equivalent or better outcomes than campus-only graduates.
• Develop consistent language and framing — a single, shared lexicon — across providers, employers, and government communications.
• Engage school careers advisors, parents and whānau with targeted communications that position degree apprenticeships as a high-status, high-value pathway.

Bolder steps — purposefully shaping perceptions

There is scope to take bolder steps that reset status signals and align incentives, so degree apprenticeships are treated as a mainstream, high-value route.

The first opportunity is a coordinated national communications campaign that reframes public perceptions of a degree apprenticeship as a high-status, high-value pathway equivalent to traditional degrees. A national campaign should:

• Use a single, consistent lexicon across government, tertiary education providers, professional bodies, and industry.
• Feature measurable proof points (registration outcomes, retention in relevant roles, earnings growth).
• Deploy multiple channels — school careers platforms, provider sites, social and earned media, and stakeholder events.

Conclusion

Degree apprenticeships offer a powerful opportunity to rethink how higher education is delivered, accessed, and valued in Aotearoa New Zealand. They bring together the strengths of our education and employment systems, combining academic knowledge with practical experience, and creating new pathways to success for learners, employers, and communities alike.

This enabling framework outlines the key system conditions — policy, practices, resource flows, relationships, power dynamics, and mental models — that must be addressed to unlock the full potential of degree apprenticeships. It highlights that no single actor can deliver this change alone. Progress depends on shared commitment, coordinated action, and a willingness to test, learn, and adapt together.

By aligning funding, regulation, and practice to support degree apprenticeships as a mainstream option, New Zealand can build a more equitable, resilient, and future-focused education and training system.