The Government plans to spend £10 million on hiring 600 foreign teachers, it emerged last night, as it launches one of the biggest ever overseas recruitment campaigns.

A tender published by the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL), reveals how the Department for Education seeks to address the “acute” shortage of teachers in Maths, Physics and Modern Languages.

The cost to the taxpayer of recruiting each teacher will be over £16,000 – before they have even stepped foot in a classroom.

The Government blamed the growth in pupil numbers, improvements in the economy, a shrinking graduate pool and greater competition in the labour market for its failure to recruit enough teachers within the UK. It says that overseas recruitment is necessary as a “supplementary avenue of teacher supply”.