It says registrations for undergraduate and postgraduate teacher training courses were 31,918 by 8 October.

Training providers estimated that another 1,979 trainees would take up places by next July.

But targets have been missed - with too few trainees in some secondary subjects and too many primary trainees.

TEACHER RECRUITMENT Too few secondary teachers Too many primary teachers Click here for the details

"For an increasing number of people, teaching now represents a smart career choice, both as a supported career and one in which you 'use your head' every day," said the agency's chief executive, Ralph Tabberer.

The breakdown is 15,651 people on primary school teaching courses - up 8%, and 18,246 on secondary courses - 9% more than last year.

In addition, the agency says about 6,400 people will begin employment-based routes into the profession this year.

There has been a 16% rise in the number taking mathematics as a secondary subject specialism - although observers have expressed concern at how many of these have degrees in maths as opposed to, say, psychology.

There has been a vicious circle of fewer people doing maths, leading to fewer qualifying in the subject, with fewer specialists to enthuse those in school, and so on.

And the government has missed its recruitment target - because it had made available 2,315 maths places but expects only 1,960 recruits.

The training agency is also celebrating having come within a whisker of having 9% of trainees being from minority ethnic groups, two years earlier than its target.

Workload cut

The School Standards Minister, David Miliband, said: "Rising staff numbers and rising quality are at the heart of an improving education system.

"The TTA's figures show that the measures we are taking to make teaching a more attractive career option are working.

"Teachers can also expect a better work-life balance now that the workload agreement is in place. Teachers no longer have to routinely do tasks such as photocopying and chasing up absentees.

"This will allow them to do what they do best - teach."

Mr Tabberer added: "Not long ago we all knew someone who wanted to leave the profession. Now we all know someone who wants to be a teacher."

Primary mismatch

But there is a looming problem among those wanting to be primary school teachers.

Some 450 more than were needed have started training - at a time when the number of pupils of primary age is falling by 50,000 this year and next, and the government is warning that fewer teachers will be needed.

Analyst John Howson, visiting professor at Oxford Brookes University, said: "Maybe people will bail out of their courses because the message will get out that they will not get a job."

But he said people training as primary teachers, rather than with a secondary subject specialism, tended to stick with it because that was the vocation they had chosen.

"It's going to be particularly upsetting for those on four-year Bachelor of Education courses who were enticed in when there was a shortage, have racked up debt, and are now going to struggle to find jobs."

Things could be made worse by the growing numbers on the increasingly diverse alternative routes into teaching, training on-the-job.

'Very silly'

Prof Howson said it could rebound on ministers.

"They would look very silly to go in a period of three years from a huge teacher shortage to huge teacher unemployment," he said.

Things would swing again soon enough because of the age profile of the profession, with many older teachers coming up to retirement and another potential shortage on the horizon.

So his recommendation was to ease those people into early retirement on a case-by-case basis.

This had the bonus that the young teachers were much cheaper.

"It might even be cash neutral," he said.