People across the region made jobless during the recession are increasingly turning to teaching, according to new figures.

The Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) says there was a 42 per cent increase in the number of applications for teacher-training courses in the last school year in Yorkshire and the Humber, and a 15 per cent increase in the number of inquiries.

Redundant salesman Kevin Davies, 48, of Queensbury, is one of those 2,772 applicants.

The former St Bede’s Grammar School pupil graduated from the University of Bradford with a degree in industrial technology in 1983.

After careers as a civil servant and accountant, he worked in sales, most recently for mobile tracking solutions firm Globallive Ltd, in Wakefield, but he was made redundant in March.

Within a month, Mr Davies, a father of two, applied to study a PGCE teacher training course at Bradford College. He starts the two-year course next Septem-ber on the condition he completes a science enhancement course at the college in the meantime.

He said he had been contemplating a career change before he lost his job.

“I had been soul-searching for a period before then but I plodded on because money was coming in,” he said.

“When I was made redundant I knew I didn’t want to continue in that field so instead of looking for jobs in sales I thought about teaching.”

Mr Davies teaches drama at his wife Elizabeth’s Stardom School of Performing Arts in Shelf, but needed classroom experience to be accepted onto a training course.

“I took a teaching assistant role at Lower Fields Primary School and after about three weeks I just thought this is what I want to do. I get a bursary which is the equivalent of a quarter of what I was earning but I’m happy I’m going somewhere.”

* The TDA is holding a Train to Teach event in York on Saturday, November 14, for people to find out more about the profession. To register for the TDA’s free event visit teach.gov.uk/talent.