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More people are changing career and turning to teaching, said Ralph Tabberer, head of the Teacher Training Agency.

The first 500 graduate teacher programme places that became available at the start of the autumn term were oversubscribed. Mr Tabberer said he expects the same to be the case for the 500 coming up in January. Programme participants get Pounds 13,000 to learn on the job.

Mr Tabberer and school standards minister Estelle Morris launched a Pounds 7 million recruitment campaign this week. He said that enrolment on teacher training courses was likely to have "stabilised" this year.