Sacked Rover car workers could get the chance to retrain as teachers.

The School Standards Minister, Estelle Morris, says some of the workers at the Longbridge plant in Birmingham have skills which schools can use.

The Teacher Training Agency is to make sure that the support packages being offered to any car workers made redundant by BMW's sell-off of the Longbridge plant include information on opportunities in education.

The plant's future remains in doubt, with one bidder proposing to scale down production - resulting in several thousand redundancies - but a rival saying it can prevent large-scale lay-offs.

As she visited the Association of Teachers and Lecturers conference in Belfast, Estelle Morris - whose own constituency is also in Birmingham - was asked about the possibilities for retraining.

"The people at Longbridge have a whole range of skills that can be very useful in both primary schools and secondary schools," she told journalists.

She had in mind mainly those who already have degree-level qualifications.

A spokesman for Rover said: "Any positive moves to put people who do eventually end up not working for the company into well-paid and interesting work are a good thing.

"Those people who do have engineering skills should utilise them to their advantage. If that's in teaching, then fine."