The Duke of York visited north-east England on Wednesday (18.01.17) to launch the University of Sunderland's new Higher and Degree Apprenticeships.
The Duke of York
The 56-year-old royal was joined at the event by a number of regional employers as he launched the new schemes designed to help support business growth in the area.
Vice-Chancellor Shirley Atkinson, who welcomed Prince Andrew, heaped praise on the royal, saying: "He is a great advocate of raising aspirations and understands the importance of education, skills and entrepreneurship in supporting, particularly young people, to have successful and rewarding careers.
"His work to ensure that Britain has the workforce and entrepreneurial culture to remain a global economic leader very much chimes with our own focus and impact at the university and it's very positive to receive his support and endorsement of our work."
Her sentiments were echoed by John MacIntyre, who is leading the university's Higher and Degree Apprenticeships programme.
He said: "We have developed our Higher and Degree Apprenticeships by collaborating closely with employers to ensure that the programmes will deliver the skills they need in their workforce.
"We are about to launch our Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship programme, and a suite of three Degree Apprenticeships in Engineering.
"These follow on from our very successful programme for the IT industry (the Digital & Technology Solutions Degree Apprenticeship) which we started in 2015, and we have ambitious plans with more programmes in development to be rolled out later in 2017."
Prince Andrew was given a guided tour of the facility and MacIntyre added that the university is proud it can now teach "the next generation of healthcare workers".