The regulations at 29 CFR part 29 addressing labor standards of apprenticeship and the governance of the National Apprenticeship System were last updated in October 2008 to increase administrative flexibility, ensure program quality, and promote registered apprenticeship opportunities.  The Department plans to revise these regulations to strengthen, expand, modernize, and diversify the National Apprenticeship System by enhancing worker protections and equity, improving the quality of registered apprenticeships, revising the state governance provisions, and more clearly establishing critical pipelines to registered apprenticeships such as pre-apprenticeships so that the National Apprenticeship System is more responsive to current worker and employer needs.  These efforts have been informed by the deliberations of the Department's reconstituted  Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship (ACA).  The Department will also make technical and conforming adjustments to the current text of 29 CFR part 30 (governing equal employment opportunity in apprenticeships) as appropriate. For additional information, please see the Department’s regulatory plan narrative statement.  The  Department conducted the following public outreach: In 2022 interim recommendations of the ACA and its 2023 Biennial Report, which incorporates the ACA's 2022 Interim Report recommendations and includes additional guideposts for the Office of Apprenticeship (OA) to consider related to registered apprenticeship; virtual listening sessions in 2021 coordinated by OA in partnership with various partners and stakeholders to hear perspectives on the current state of the National Apprenticeship System and to gather ideas and suggestions on ways to modernize registered apprenticeship programs; National Online Dialogue in 2022, led by OA and launched by ePolicyWorks (entitled Advancing the National Apprenticeship System”), which asked participants, including various partners and stakeholders, to describe what they believed to be the optimal implementation of the registered apprenticeship model; Virtual Listening Sessions in 2023, coordinated by OA, wherein partners and stakeholders were given the opportunity to share perspectives on the current state of the National Apprenticeship System and to share policy recommendations for ways to strengthen and modernize the system. Questions for these sessions were developed, in part, by reviewing the ACA's 2022 Interim Report; The 2023 Quality Apprenticeships Recommendation (ILO Recommendation No. 208), adopted by the 111th International Labour Conference on June 16, 2023, which describes the fundamental attributes of quality apprenticeships; and Regular stakeholder engagements related to the expansion of the registered apprenticeship model, including with industry groups, labor unions, worker advocates, State and local workforce partners, education systems, and intermediaries.