Personally speaking: Bethan Marshall

Headteachers warned this week of a dire shortage of teacher recruits. I blame the Government

In a recent interview Chris Woodhead confessed that he drifted into teaching because the long holidays would give him plenty of time to pursue his real passion - rock climbing. When he started, although teaching did not have high status, it had a degree of respectability and the promise of an easy life. Although I did not want to climb rocks in my spare time, my entry into the profession was equally ambiguous. It was a handy qualification to have and promised another year at university, a place I was loath to leave. One term in and I was hooked. I actually wanted to teach.

Part of the current recruitment crisis now facing the profession, publicised so starkly by the National Association of Head Teachers this week, stems from the lack of such casual entrants. Years of constant criticism from central government about poor teachers; the much vaunted scrutiny of the profession through OFTSED and league tables and the ever-increasing publicity about difficult and failing schools has meant that teaching is not something you drift into any more. It all seems like far too much hard work for very little thanks or reward.

There are advantages to this. The students that I teach on the postgraduate certificate course at King's College London, have all thought hard about what they want to do. Very few are simply filling in a year. As such they are far more focused and hard working than my contemporaries. A handful, when they realise just what a commitment a good teacher has to make to the job, are wavering, but almost all have already got jobs and will, I have no doubt, make excellent additions to the profession.

But they are not the problem. We simply do not have enough new teachers to replace those who are leaving the profession in their thousands. A month ago the Times Educational Supplement had almost 200 pages of job advertisements. The subsequent editions have not been that much slimmer, and we are still not at the end of the school year, when most of the vacancies appear. The Teacher Training Agency records serious shortages for courses in maths, science and modern foreign languages. In English there are barely enough applicants to fill all the places.

Despite placing education at the top of the agenda and putting more money into the system, the Labour government must share some of the responsibility for this crisis. Although ministers have from time to time been heard saying nice things about teachers - that they work very hard and that most of them are very dedicated - actions speak louder than words. And this government has been nothing if not active.

Part of their driving philosophy seems to be creating policies that will make schools look safe in their hands, so avoiding any measures that might give rise to tabloid headlines that Labour have gone native on education. In effect this has meant talking tough and following their understanding of public opinion. Parents are worried about standards, so Labour will tell teachers what to do right down to planning primary maths and English lessons to the minute.

No amount of advertising, where celebrities recall their favourite teacher, will undo the clearer message that teaching is not a real profession; that teachers cannot be trusted to do the job without some Whitehall mandarin explaining it to them. Such an attitude affects the morale of those already in the profession as much as it sends a signal to those thinking of becoming teachers.

This centralising trend in Labour's policy means that they have become the corporate bosses of the education industry. Extending the metaphor further, all good employers know that it is not enough to ask what the consumer wants to make business boom, you have to motivate and develop your staff as well. Alienating your workforce to ingratiate yourself with the customer does not, in the long run, make sense.

Part of the solution must lie in financial gain. Again, Labour's record is poor. The pay award, below the level of inflation, was phased in. As long as good graduates can earn more elsewhere, they are unlikely, unless they are very certain, to teach. But money on its own is not enough. Teaching has to be seen to be more than simply implementing somebody else's ideas because you cannot be trusted with your own, if it is to attract and keep the brightest and the best.

In the past, those who drifted into teaching found themselves in a vibrant profession that gave them responsibility, autonomy and the chance to be imaginative and creative. Unless we recreate this atmosphere in schools, and this image of teaching outside them, people will continue to vote with their feet. And without good teachers, Labour's promises are in vain.

The writer is lecturer in education at King's College London.