Niamh

My parents came over from Cork in the eighties, and I grew up thinking physics was just something you did in school until you could get to the real subjects. But at Sheffield Hallam, something clicked. Not the equations themselves, but the way they described the world. How light bends, how forces balance, how everything connects. After graduating, I took a lab job, thinking that was what physics graduates did. But I spent my days running the same tests on the same samples, writing reports nobody seemed to read.

Then I started volunteering at the Magna Science Adventure Centre on weekends. Watching eight-year-olds figure out how pulleys work, seeing their faces when they realized they could lift something twice their weight with the right setup. That was when I knew. I wanted to teach.

I applied for the University of Sheffield's PGCE programme in January 2023. The interview went well. Dr. Sarah Collins, the admissions tutor, said I was exactly the kind of candidate they needed. "Physics teachers are in desperate shortage across Yorkshire," she told me. "Your background is perfect, and your passion for the subject comes through clearly."

Then she paused. "But I have to be honest with you about the funding situation. The physics bursaries have been reduced from £28,000 to £20,000 for Yorkshire trainees. The Department for Education has cut our regional allocation. We simply don't have the funding to support the numbers we need."

Twenty thousand pounds still seemed like a lot to me. But Dr. Collins explained the reality. "Most of our trainees are supporting themselves for a full year while they complete the course. Without the higher bursary, many can't afford to take the risk. We've had to reduce our intake by a third."

It sounded reasonable when she said it. Budgets were tight everywhere, weren't they? The Department for Education had to make difficult choices.

I tried a different route. Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust ran science communication programmes. Not exactly teaching, but close enough. I could explain medical research to schools, maybe work my way toward education roles.

James Morton, the HR manager, listened politely to my proposal. "It's exactly the kind of position we need," he said. "But we've had to freeze all education posts due to Treasury spending constraints. There's no budget for new positions this year."

Again, it made sense. Hospitals had to prioritise patient care. Education posts were a luxury they couldn't afford.

I contacted Sheffield City Council about their adult education programmes. Maybe I could teach physics to adults returning to education, people wanting to change careers. Angela Price, the learning coordinator, sighed when I mentioned teaching physics. "We'd love to expand science provision. There's such demand. But the funding envelope from central government hasn't increased in three years. We're actually having to cut back on some courses."

Three doors, three versions of the same answer. The money wasn't there. Budgets were squeezed. Difficult choices had to be made.

I was walking past the University of Sheffield's education building a few weeks later when I saw something that stopped me cold. A notice board by the entrance advertised twelve unfilled physics teacher training places for September 2023. Twelve places they couldn't fill.

I peered through the windows of the ground floor. Empty seminar rooms with whiteboards still showing equations from previous sessions. I walked around the building and found more windows. Stacks of unused textbooks on shelves. Teaching equipment still in boxes. A dedicated physics lab that looked like it hadn't been used in weeks.

I stood there staring at those empty rooms and something shifted. Dr. Collins had told me they'd reduced their intake by a third because they didn't have the funding. But here were twelve places they couldn't fill at all. The building was there. The equipment was there. The staff were there, presumably with time on their hands if their classes were running below capacity.

I started thinking about James Morton at the hospital. "No budget for new positions." But I'd walked through those hospitals. I'd seen the education centres, the meeting rooms used for staff training. The infrastructure was there. The need was clearly there if they thought my role was exactly what they needed.

And Angela Price at the council, talking about cutting back on courses while telling me there was such demand for science provision. The venues were there. I'd seen the adult education centres. The classrooms were sitting empty most evenings.

I began to ask a different question. If the buildings existed, if the people who wanted to learn existed, if the people who wanted to teach existed, what exactly was it that "there was no money" for?

The Department for Education that cut the physics bursaries is part of the same government that issues the pound. The Treasury that imposed spending constraints on the NHS is the same Treasury that creates the pounds it was supposedly unable to find. Sheffield City Council receives funding from a government that prints the notes they were told they couldn't have enough of.

I used to accept the excuse that "there was no money." I hear it differently now. The government that prints the notes and mints the coins told me it could not find enough of them to train the people who were standing right there, ready to work. But the real question was never about money. It was about whether the people existed, whether the skills could be taught, whether the materials were available. They were. All of them.

The excuse was not a fact. It was a choice wrapped in the language of impossibility. It is the same logic as a household that says "we cannot afford it," except a household does not issue its own currency. The government does. The limit was never the money. The limit was the willingness to spend it into the places and the people who needed it.

I'm still here, still watching those empty training rooms, still seeing the unfilled places advertised term after term. What I understand now is that this isn't just my story. Walk through any constituency where people want to work and work needs doing, and you'll hear the same phrase: "There's no money." But you'll also see the same contradiction: the people, the buildings, the equipment, all sitting idle while someone in Westminster explains that the cupboard is bare. The cupboard that they stock themselves, with the currency they create.