Hon CHRIS HIPKINS (Minister of Education): Revitalising apprenticeships and vocational education has been a top priority for this Government. We're now seeing record numbers of apprentices learning their trade whilst working on the job. As of April this year, there were 62,000 apprentices across a range of industries. That's a 60 percent increase in the last two years alone. A further 41,000 industry trainees were enrolled in shorter programmes of study. This shows that the vocational education system is in good heart, supported by the Government's Apprenticeship Boost and Targeted Training and Apprenticeship Fund.