A SHORTAGE of teachers in the region could prove dire if the problem is not addressed within the next five years, it was claimed last night.

As the Government continued to come under fire over teacher numbers, it emerged that the North-East and North Yorkshire are suffering in the crisis.

The North-East branch of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) painted a depressing story of shortages of teachers and supply teachers.

Martin Fisher, NUT principal officer for the North-East, said: "If the problems are not addressed we could be in real dire straits in five years' time. You cannot conjure teachers up from thin air. The Government has set up these gimmicks to bring people into teaching, but they don't really work in the long term. They have to address the pay and conditions.

"The nationwide teacher shortage is beginning to have an impact on the North-East and North Yorkshire. The situation regarding supply teachers is absolutely desperate."

He said that there was a problem filling small school headships in North Yorkshire, while six deputy headships were vacant in Darlington.

He added that Middlesbrough is experiencing problems filling vacancies for science teachers and recruiting supply teachers, and Stockton has difficulty recruiting mathematics and information technology teachers.

However, some local authorities said they were not experiencing severe shortages.

A Middlesbrough Borough Council said: "Teachers are hard to find in some sciences, maths and modern languages at secondary levels. We have put in place a recruitment and retention strategy where we are encouraging more people into the area to do their training."

Darlington Borough Council said the situation there was not unusual and it did not "have a problem filling teaching posts", but said it was not complacent about the situation