Ministers have promised to review impact on professions

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) said tuition fees up to �3,000 a year would leave student teachers "particularly disadvantaged".

The Teacher Training Agency said it was waiting to hear whether financial incentives for teachers would be uprated in line with the higher fees.

The government has promised to examine the likely impact on public services.

Salary levels

The ATL's general secretary, Mary Bousted, said: "At a time when the government is already struggling to recruit enough people into teaching to meet the needs of schools, the prospect of a burden of debt on top of a relatively low salary will not make this any easier.

"Student teachers are likely to be particularly disadvantaged.

"Their starting salaries will be just enough to start paying back their debts but most will never earn the kind of salaries that Tony Blair has promised graduates."

The planned changes would most hit those doing four-year Bachelor of Education degrees - who made up 23% of the 31,387 people who entered teacher training this year.

Already they do not benefit from the �6,000 bursaries on offer for people doing a post-graduate education certificate.

"This is likely to decimate the undergraduate teaching courses," Ms Bousted said.

"This will further damage recruitment into teaching because these courses play a vital part in widening access into the profession."

She mentioned in particular mature entrants, returners and students from ethnic minorities.

Under review

The Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, told MPs when he opened Tuesday's crucial debate on the Higher Education Bill that the government had stressed the importance it attached to attracting high quality recruits to the public sector and the professions.

He said he was commissioning a report next year to examine "the gateways into the professions".

This would look particularly at the position of students who did not qualify for the full �3,000 support package for those from the least well off families.

"The government is already spending over �700m to support the recruitment and retention of teachers, doctors and dentists, nurses, mid-wives, social workers and other health professionals," he said.

"Other employers in both the public and private sector will no doubt want to consider schemes to make sure that they too can bring through the graduates they need."