By Shola Adenekan

There has been a big rise in people with IT expertise

Wendy Desborough, 22, has a first degree in civil engineering but is now training to be a secondary school teacher at Oxford Brookes University's Westminster Institute of Education.

"At university I could tell that engineering wasn't the right route for me," she says.

"So I started looking for a different career move. Although my parents tried to persuade me otherwise, teaching always seemed very interesting and a great challenge.

"I know that I will never get bored with it as every single day holds something very different."

Supply and demand

A recent study shows that much of the class of 2003 is shunning the City for careers in the classroom.

The 2003 UK Graduate Careers survey's 10 most popular career options show teaching in the top three, pushing investment banking to seventh place.

The decision of more graduates to choose teaching as a career is being welcomed by ministers, who have promised to recruit an extra 10,000 teachers in the lifetime of this parliament.

Professor John Howson, a parliamentary adviser on education and a teacher recruitment expert, sees the current trend as a result of both supply and demand factors working together on the labour market.

"The government has finally made teaching more attractive as a career," he said.

"The �6,000 training grant introduced in 2000 has had a significant effect on recruitment. It was responsible for reversing the trend towards fewer applications from graduates."

Budget problems

Howson says the tighter labour market has also helped.

The shortage of secondary teachers means that all our cohorts have left us with promises of employment Teacher trainer Liz Browne

"In 1999, many young people went to university to read IT and computing, inspired by the dotcom boom and fame of Silicon Valley.

"These students graduated in 2002 to a very different labour market. Hence, applications to train as IT teachers are up from 1,214 at this point last year to 1,704 this year."

However, teaching union leaders say there may not be enough jobs to go round as this year's education budget has led to perhaps 1,000 teaching posts being designated for compulsory redundancy or not being filled when vacant.

Prof Howson says the government should open the door to early retirement deals for teachers in their 50s so schools snap up the new talents available.

"My main concern is to achieve a sensible age for the profession," he said.

"At present, we have 50% of teachers over 45 years of age. If they all work until 60 or 65, we will then switch to a profession where similar proportions of teachers are under 30.

"This can cause problems with finding sufficient experienced staff to lead schools."

Training rethink

The rise in the number of applications also means that teaching schools have to readjust their workload.

Liz Browne, who is responsible for secondary initial teacher training at Oxford Brookes, says if the trend continues the university will have to rethink its delivery of courses.

"The model we use here at Westminster Institute still relies heavily on the university tutors working with the school mentors to assess trainee competence. As numbers increase this will become more difficult and expensive for us to manage."

But new trainees and their teachers are not worried about a likely deluge in the teaching profession.

"The shortage of secondary teachers means that all our cohorts have left us with promises of employment," says Ms Browne.

Trainee Wendy Desborough agrees.

"I doubt the profession will ever be crowded. The incentives are not great enough to recruit as many teachers as we need.

"My fears stretch more to the other end - of too many pupils to teach in one class."

Opportunities

Niall Munro, 24, also studies at Oxford Brookes and says he enjoys the variety.

This is as far away from a tedious office job as it is possible to get Trainee teacher Niall Munro

"There are never two days the same at a school, whether you are a trainee or qualified teacher.

"This is as far away from a tedious office job as it is possible to get.

"Likewise, you can get involved in many different sporting and cultural opportunities at the school.

"It is exciting to be in a room with students who are setting out to do great things. Seeing students achieving, especially if you have been at least part of that achievement, is a remarkable feeling."

However, Munro cites the long hours and the amounts of paperwork teachers have to do as disadvantages.

"Teachers want to teach, but education authorities and even schools won't allow them to do what they are employed to do.

"If I had wanted to fill out forms I would have trained to be an administrator."