A surge in the number of births will see thousands of new nursery and primary school pupils over the next eight years, new figures show.

Owing to a rise in the birth rate and increased numbers of immigrants in some towns and cities, statisticians predict that there will be a rise of around 540,000 children of primary school age by 2018.

This would mean that the number of young pupils in the UK would stand at 4.5 million in eight years and require around 2,260 new primaries to be built, the Daily Telegraph reported.

"It's clear that rising pupil numbers are a major issue facing the schools system," commented schools minister Lord Hill.

"Our independent capital review will report shortly on how we can make best use of available capital funds to target one of our key priorities of meeting the rising demand for school places."

People in teaching jobs were also told recently that the government plans to publish school league tables which detail the performance of five-year-olds.

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