When the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill was introduced, Children's Secretary Ed Balls said it would require schools to provide pupils with unbiased information on learning and employment options.
But the bill includes a clause that asks schools to promote apprenticeships only if they consider it to be in the "best interests" of pupils.
Graham Hoyle, chief executive of the Association of Learning Providers (ALP), claimed the clause will allow schools to deny pupils impartial advice.
He said: "To allow young people to be denied the information to help them to make an informed choice about post-16 options is potentially damaging to their career prospects and the country's economy. It is also patronising that adults should be permitted to make the choice for them."
Hoyle also claimed the clause exists to make sure that large numbers of pupils go onto sixth form and into higher education.
He said that ALP would do everything in its power to get the clause amended so that schools have to give advice on apprenticeships.
But Ed Balls denied that the clause gives schools the chance to opt out of promoting apprenticeships.
He said: "The bill places a clear duty on schools - and they will have to honour it; we will ensure that they do not get around it."
A public bill committee will now scrutinise the bill until the end of March.
