Sue Littlemore: talking to student teachers about the recruitment problem

In an attempt to alleviate a deepening recruitment crisis, the School Standards Minister, Estelle Morris, has announced that new recruits for teaching the subjects in secondary school will be given a one-off payment of around £5,000.

The government's £130m investment will mean that new maths and science teachers will be paid two £2,500 lump sums, first on entering postgraduate training and then when beginning work.

There will also be £250,000 to set up a regional network of recruitment advisers for teaching.

Estelle Morris says that the cash bonus is a short-term measure to tackle an immediate problem

The initiatives are designed to address severe shortages of well-qualified graduates on teacher training courses in secondary school maths and science.

This year under 700 graduates entered maths teacher training, compared to 1,000 last year, representing a shortfall of 60% on government targets.

For science, this year's intake of student teachers is 40% below government targets and 39% down on last year.

BBC Education Correspondent Sue Littlemore reports on the government recruitment drive

The School Standards Minister, Estelle Morris, said that the cash offer was a short-term measure to address the immediate shortage of teachers for these subjects.

"The real solution lies in the reform of the teaching profession. But it would have been wrong to sit tight and do nothing while we have these difficulties facing schools," the minister said.

A more comprehensive approach to the recruitment crisis and the targeting of pay awards will be made in the Green Paper on the teaching profession, which the minister said would be published before the end of the year.

But the Liberal Democrats education spokesman, Don Foster, said that the proposals would create anomalies rather than resolve the broader problems facing teaching recruitment.

Subjects other than maths and science faced shortages, such as technology, he said. What was needed to make teaching more attractive was an across the board package to improve pay and conditions.

Shadow Education Minister, Theresa May, offered the proposals a "cautious welcome", but said that "piecemeal measures" would not solve the recruitment crisis.