The Government proudly announced last week that teacher vacancies across England had fallen in all secondary shortage subjects over the past year.

But the slight drop in maths vacancies (from 410 to 380) and in science subjects (from 398 to 380) will barely register on the radars of schools struggling to find teachers. The Teacher Training Agency admits that non-specialists will need to be trained to ease maths and science staffing shortages.

The agency estimates that to fill all the postgraduate places for maths and science trainees, colleges need to recruit around 40 per cent of this year’s maths and physics graduates and a slightly smaller proportion of chemistry graduates. That is plainly not going to happen, even though recruitment is up.

At the beginning of April the number of applications for maths postgraduate certificate courses stood at 842, compared with 670 last year - up a quarter.In physics, applications were up from 123 to 173 and in chemistry from 302 to 350. But there are worrying signs that the rate of new applications is now slowing down.

Even if recruiters hit their maths and science targets, they may not be able to turn out enough specialist teachers because targets are based on out-of-date figures from a 1996 staffing survey.

No one knows how many teachers are teaching outside their area of expertise.

Barry Lewis, president of the Mathematical Association, estimates that at key stage 3, about 50-60 per cent of secondary pupils are taught maths by non-specialists. “I suspect schools in many cases keep their specialist maths teachers for examination groups,” he said.

The AS-level debacle, which hit maths especially hard and led to many students dropping the subject, was likely to compound the problem in the long term, he added.

Applications for maths degrees are down 12 per cent this year, and the outlook seems bleak. In physics, applications have dropped 9 per cent.

Sir Gareth Roberts, who reviewed the supply of scientists for the Treasury, recommends that maths and science teachers be paid more than other teachers (TES, April 19).

David Moore, chief executive of the Association for Science Education, agrees this is worth a try as it would send a message to science graduates that teaching is a valued profession.

Others believe that an over-prescriptive curriculum, rather than pay, is the real problem for many young teachers. “Their training gives them lots of interesting ideas but then they find they can’t follow these through in the classroom, and an awful lot of teachers are leaving after a short time because of that,” says Barbara Ball of the Association of Teachers of Mathematics.

She argues that, rather than offering some teachers more pay, which could be divisive, the Government could give subject leaders more time to support non-specialist colleagues. “Realistically, we aren’t going to be able to recruit enough qualified maths teachers,” she says. “So the Government has got to find a way of making the best use of the good ones they have got.”

MONEY IS NOT ENOUGH

Wales has few vacancies in maths and science. This is despite the fact that trainees are no better off than in England, getting a pound;4,000 “golden hello” and a pound;6,000 training grant.

In England, the Government is planning to pay off the student loans of trainees in shortage subjects - an approach tried in the United States. Those who stay in the profession will have their loans repaid over five, seven or 10 years, depending on the type of loan they have.

However, policy-makers recognise that cash alone will not end the shortages. The Teacher Training Agency is developing pre-PGCE “subject enhancement” courses for people with maths and science skills who do not have degrees in the subjects.