Teacher numbers have risen by 25,000 since 1997, says the education department

Teacher recruitment figures are not being falsely inflated, says the government, responding to accusations that statistics have been "sexed up".

The Department for Education and Skills has strongly rejected suggestions that successes in attracting more people into teaching have been exaggerated, with figures including trainees and unqualified staff.

There is no suggestion of ministers being able to "tamper" with official recruitment statistics, says an education department spokesperson.

"We now calculate teacher numbers against a stricter definition of a teacher than ever before . Figures are prepared by the Government Statistical Service according to published National Statistics rules."

"The facts speak for themselves. There are 25,000 more teachers than in 1997 and more teachers than at any time since 1982," says the education department spokesperson.

The government says that there is "nothing new" in including certain types of trainee teachers in survey figures, a practice which has been in place since the 1990s.

Trainees

These are "mature trainees", whose previous employment experience means that they can train "on the job" in schools.

"They have contracts of employment as teachers and are paid accordingly," - and as such are counted as teachers, says the education department.

The education department also rejected claims that specialist and overseas teachers should not be included in figures.

This was "insulting" to experienced staff who had trained and qualified overseas, says the education department.

The specialist staff could include people such as music or sports staff, who might not be fully-qualified teachers, but who have a specialist skill which they provide to schools.

In April, the government claimed that its plan to recruit 10,000 more teachers by 2006 had been met three years early - with figures showing there were 13,700 more teacher than in January 2001.

But teachers' unions and opposition parties disputed that the recruitment problems were being overcome, arguing that the positive figures were too dependent on overseas teachers.