The “training grant” for postgraduate certificate in education students appears to have been introduced just in time to arrest a significant fall in new teacher numbers. Between 1997 and 2000, the number of people completing initial teacher training courses dropped from 26,150 to 21,730.

The fall in the number of undergraduates taking BEd courses was particularly marked during this period under the twin pressures of fees and student loans.

In 2000, only 1,330 secondary trainees completed degree courses compared with more than 10,000 who went down the PGCE route. Even the output of primary trainees, on BEd and other degree courses, dropped from more than 7,500 to just over 5,500 in four years.

The introduction of the pound;6,000 training grant in September 2000 has done nothing to reverse the decline in undergraduate numbers. Only 1,440 students entered secondary undergraduate courses in the autumn of 2001. But the extra 3,040 PGCE students attracted by the new grant have improved the overall total.

Had the Labour government not been able to benefit from the decision - taken by the Conservatives in 1996 - to cut the number of teachers retiring early, the teaching force might have actually shrunk. But now that many of those teachers who were prevented from leaving are finally reaching normal retirement age, new recruits will be needed in even larger numbers. Unless that happens, class sizes will increase in some schools. But it remains to be seen whether schools and local education authorities can afford to recruit large numbers of new staff, particularly if it is true that this year’s pay award for teachers has not been fully funded by the Government.

No LEA could have anticipated, and budgeted for the cost of shortening the basic pay spine. And if this additional expense is coupled with a shortfall of funding for performance-related pay, schools will be forced to use much of their budgets to reward existing staff rather than to recruit new teachers. This, in turn, will reduce the number of new posts schools can create, thus depressing the demand for teachers and helping to bring the supply and demand sides of the equation back into some form of equilibrium. However, as there is concern over teachers’ workload, and secondary pupil numbers are still rising - even if they are falling in the primary sector - many schools will still need to recruit more teachers to be fully staffed in September.

John Howson is a visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University and managing director of EducationData Surveys.Email john.howson@lineone.net