Education Secretary Michael Gove said the new "Frontline" training scheme will recruit the “highest-achieving graduates” and train them as social workers.
Two pilot projects in London and Manchester offering an initial 100 places between them will begin recruiting later this year, with courses due to start in September 2014.
Students will be given five weeks of intensive summer school training and two years of hands-on work in a local authority.
Gove described Frontline as “an exciting proposal” and “a real challenge for the brightest applicants”.
But there is concern over candidates dealing with real-life cases after little more than a month of training.
Bridget Robb, interim chief executive of The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) said there are “enormous challenges” in the proposed timescale to “prepare people adequately for safe practice”.
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