Figures showing an increase in students entering teacher training and a fall in vacancies in schools have been welcomed with some guarded optimism from the minister, who said the difficulties in finding new teachers were beginning to be overcome.

"I am not complacent, but it looks like we could be beginning to turn the corner on teacher shortages," the minister said.

Estelle Morris is cautiously optimistic about an improvement in teacher recruitment

The government's statistics show a 3% increase in applications to postgraduate teacher training courses and a slight decrease in teacher vacancies, from 2,244 last year to 2,359.

In particular, the prospect of the �5,000 "golden hello" offered as an incentive for entering teacher training for maths and science has proved popular with students, as course applications have risen by 27% and 17% respectively.

But there have been falls in the numbers of students wanting to become teachers of French, history and business studies.

The government has funded a recruitment campaign to tackle the shortage of teachers, a problem made more pressing by the need to recruit more teachers to meet the targets for reducing class sizes.

Efforts to raise the profile of teaching as a possible career, which has so far included television and cinema advertising, will still be necessary to fill the empty places in the classroom, said the minister.

"That is why over the next three years, we will be investing �130m to boost teacher recruitment. As well as the �5,000 incentives, we will be funding recruitment advisers in 70 local authorities where there have been recruitment difficulties."