Are government initiatives helping colleges to attract the young recruits horticulture desperately needs? Colleges stand to gain both from government efforts to increase numbers of young people going on to further education, and from the growing number of schoolchildren taking vocational qualifications before they leave school. Britain is near the bottom of the developed countries' league for 17-year-olds participating in education, at around 75 per cent. "Too many young people reach 16 without any idea of the wide range of careers they could follow," says director general Chris Humphries of awarding body City & Guilds. He says that "shortages in vocational and technical skills are now widespread and set to worsen over the next decade".
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