Introduction

Degree-Level Apprenticeships only succeed when they are deliberately designed, rather than retrofitted from or tacked onto existing degrees, internships, or work placements.

Designing a DLA means shaping an experience where:

  • Learning is integrated across work and study—not delivered in silos

  • Employer and provider responsibilities are clear, balanced, and practical

  • Learners are set up to succeed, with support available in both settings

  • Assessment reflects real-world capability and academic standards

  • Delivery is flexible, responsive, and inclusive

This phase is where principles become practice.

What this involves

The Design phase includes:

  1. Mapping the DLA learning journey across both the job and the qualification

  2. Clarifying responsibilities for delivery, support, and supervision

  3. Embedding work-integrated learning and assessment throughout the degree

  4. Creating learner-centric structures

  5. Finalising delivery logistics such as enrolment, funding, pacing, and modes

Good design doesn’t mean getting everything perfect upfront, but it does mean co-designing with, not just for, learners and employers.

Employers

Your role: Help define the real work tasks, workplace capabilities, and supervisory structures that make the apprenticeship meaningful and productive.

What to contribute:

  • Job-role mapping: What roles and duties will the apprentice actually perform? Think about whether the apprentice is new to your business or the industry, or might be an existing employee with more experience?

  • Supervision planning: Who will guide the apprentice? What support do they need to succeed as mentors or team leads?

  • Work-integrated tasks: What workplace activities can be linked to specific learning outcomes in the degree?

  • Assessment input: How can you contribute through tasks like verifying that the work is the apprentice’s own or providing workplace observations, assessment or feedback?

Key outcome: A clear, structured plan for how the workplace supports the apprentice’s learning aligned with the qualification and realistic for the business.

Tools for you

  • Employer-provider role matrix

Tertiary providers

Your role: Take the lead in designing a qualification structure that integrates work-based learning, supports diverse learners, and maintains academic integrity.

What to contribute

  • Curriculum integration: Align workplace activities with learning outcomes, course modules, and assessment milestones

  • Blended and flexible delivery: Offer modes that work for employed learners (e.g. online, block courses, evening sessions)

  • Recognition of prior learning: Build in pathways for learners with existing credentials or experience

  • Support systems: Coordinate with employers to ensure pastoral, academic, and cultural support are tailored to work-based learners

  • Admissions: Operationalise dual-admissions where employer and provider jointly approve candidates.

Key output: A documented qualification and programme structure that embeds the DLA model across curriculum, delivery, assessment, enrolment, and learner support systems and meets accreditation requirements.

Tools for you

Industry Skills Boards, Professional Bodies, and Industry Associations

Your role: Ensure the qualification and workplace experience align with occupational standards, registration requirements, and long-term workforce development goals.

What to contribute

  • Occupation standards alignment: Confirm the DLA programme reflects the technical, ethical, and professional expectations of the role

  • Qualification suitability: Validate whether the degree is fit-for-purpose, or identify adaptations needed

  • Registration guidance: Where applicable, ensure the programme can lead to professional registration or licensure

  • Workforce equity and diversity: Promote inclusive design that supports underrepresented groups in the profession

  • Direct contributions: What roles can professional bodies or industry associations play?

Key output: Confidence that the DLA will produce competent, recognised, and employable graduates within the profession or industry.

Tools for you

  • Roles of professional bodies

Learners and Whānau

Your role: Bring lived experience and learner voice into the design process to ensure the DLA is accessible, realistic, and empowering.

What to align:

  • Lived experience insights: What supports did you need (or wish you had) to stay engaged and succeed?

  • Feedback on pacing and workload: Is the proposed rhythm of study + work sustainable?

  • Equity prompts: Are Māori, Pacific, women, and underserved learners being considered in design decisions?

  • Expectations clarity: Is it clear what you can expect from your employer and your provider?

Key output: A programme designed with not just for learners, including practical support structures and clear communication about rights, responsibilities, and expectations.

Tools for you

  • Learner experience flowchart

Tools and Templates

You can use the following tools (available in the toolkit) to support alignment conversations:

  1. Admissions checklist

  2. Roles of professional bodies

  3. Models of work-integrated delivery

  4. Employer-provider role matrix

  5. Learner experience flowchart

  6. Costing model

What comes next?

Once the programme has been designed and responsibilities are clear, the partnership can move into Delivery operationalising the DLA model, inducting apprentices, and ensuring systems are in place to support them across both learning environments.

Design is where the foundation becomes a real plan. Get it right, and the delivery phase becomes not just manageable, but powerful.

The DLA toolkit

Guidelines

  • Guide for employers

    An introduction to degree-level apprenticeships for employers

    Employers

  • Guide for apprentices

    An introduction to degree-level apprenticeships for learners

    Apprentices

  • Guide for TEOs

    An introduction to degree-level apprenticeships for tertiary education organisations

    TEOs