A FURTHER blow has been dealt to student teachers who had hoped to qualify for the Government's lauded £6,000 training salary.

The incentive is aimed at plugging the teacher shortages crisis, described as being at its worst point for 36 years.

Those who study for a degree and later opt to become teachers by taking the Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) are entitled to the money.

But the dedicated students who follow their chosen career path from a young age, and take a four-year education course to become a teacher do not receive the cash boost.

The discrepancy has outraged students. Debra Wright, 20, is about to start her second year of a BA Hons in Primary Education, at Sunderland University, and has a part time job at her local pub in Pity Me, near Durham.

"It's quite annoying because teaching is something I've always wanted to do," she said. If you come along and take a geography degree and can't decide what you want to do next, you get this £6,000 if you become a teacher.

"It's not fair when you think the two of us can apply to do the same job, but at the end of the day they'll have £6,000 in their back pocket.

"If they are so short of teachers, why aren't they targeting the money at the A- level people before they start the courses?"

Brian Garvey, North Yorkshire national executive member for the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers, said: "It is ridiculous and yet another example of the Government bringing in an initiative and not thinking it through properly."

The latest row over the incentives follows the experience of another North-East student. Clare Hodgson, 25, from Consett, County Durham, discovered four days before starting her course she would not be entitled to the cash because she is attending a Scottish University, a country which has a devolved parliament and pays tuition fees.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Education and Skills said the incentive was introduced because there were problems with the lack of people doing PGCEs. But she said they were looking at ways of making it fairer.