A raft of blue-chip companies is taking part in a government-backed scheme to help employees switch to a second career in teaching.

Larry Hirst, chairman of IBM Europe, which was involved in developing the Transition to Teaching scheme and is one of the 48 companies and government agencies participating in it, denied it was a way of shunting mediocre performers into another profession. He said IBM employees joining it must show "solid performance in their annual appraisals in the past three years".