Lydia

I still remember the first time I mixed copper sulphate with iron filings in Year 12. The solution turned from blue to green right in front of my eyes, and something clicked. Chemistry wasn't just about memorising equations – it was about understanding how the world actually worked, how atoms rearranged themselves according to rules you could predict and test. My teacher, Mrs Patterson, had this way of making even the most complex reactions feel like detective stories. She's the reason I studied chemistry at Imperial College, and she's the reason I wanted to teach.

After two years at a pharmaceutical company in Slough, I kept thinking about those moments when everything suddenly made sense for a student. I'd been volunteering at a community centre in Roehampton, helping teenagers with their science homework, and I watched their faces change when they finally grasped why metals conduct electricity or how photosynthesis actually works. That's when I knew I wanted to be in a classroom full-time. I started collecting vintage chemistry textbooks at car boot sales – not because I needed them, but because I loved seeing how the same fundamental truths had been explained to generations of students.

In September 2023, I applied for secondary science teacher training through the Department for Education's Get Into Teaching service. The adviser I spoke to was apologetic but clear: chemistry teacher bursaries in London had been reduced from £27,000 to £15,000 due to what she called "budget constraints across all training routes." She explained that Treasury spending limits meant they had to prioritise recruitment in areas with the lowest application rates. London apparently wasn't one of them.

I applied anyway to the Institute of Education at UCL. The admissions tutor was sympathetic when she told me their PGCE places were limited because reduced bursaries meant fewer applicants could afford to live in London during training. "We understand the irony," she said. "London schools need chemistry teachers more than anywhere, but the financial support doesn't reflect that reality." I asked if there were any alternatives. She suggested looking at School Direct programmes, where partner schools might offer additional support.

I tried Roehampton University's School Direct programme next. The admissions officer there was frank about their situation. They'd had to cut their chemistry cohort from 20 places to 12 because partner schools couldn't afford to support trainees without adequate bursary funding. "The schools want the teachers," she told me. "They desperately need chemistry graduates. But they can't subsidise the training when the government funding isn't there." She used that phrase again: "The budget has been cut."

At first, this all sounded reasonable. Public spending is limited. Choices have to be made. I understood that government departments couldn't fund everything they wanted to fund. I started looking at alternative routes – maybe I could teach physics instead, or move somewhere outside London where the bursaries stretched further.

Then in February 2024, I visited my old sixth form college in Wandsworth. I wanted to talk to Mrs Patterson about other pathways into teaching. When I arrived, I found something that didn't fit the story I'd been told. The college had three unfilled chemistry teacher positions. Three. The head of science, Mr Williams, walked me past a fully equipped laboratory that was only being used for A-level classes. "We've got everything we need except the teachers," he said. "The equipment is sitting here, the students need the lessons, but we can't recruit graduate chemists."

I asked him about the interviews they'd conducted. "We've seen several strong candidates," he told me. "People with good degrees who clearly want to teach. But they can't accept the positions because they haven't been able to access teacher training in London. The costs are too high without proper bursary support." He gestured toward the empty lab bench. "So we have a classroom that could be teaching 30 students chemistry right now, and it's empty for half the week."

That's when I started to understand what was really happening. The people existed – I'd met some of them in the waiting rooms of admissions offices. The schools existed – I was standing in one that needed teachers. The equipment existed – the lab benches and fume cupboards were right there. The students existed – they were in other lessons, waiting for chemistry classes that couldn't run.

If all of those things existed, what exactly was it that "there was no money" for? The government that prints the pounds and issues the currency was telling me it couldn't find enough of them to connect graduates who wanted to teach with schools that needed teachers. But the graduates were standing right there. The schools were asking for them. The Treasury wasn't being asked to magic teachers into existence – just to provide enough support so the teachers who already wanted to do the job could afford to train for it.

I started to see the contradiction everywhere. Training centres with empty places while schools couldn't recruit. Graduates priced out of programmes while classrooms sat understaffed. The Department for Education competing with other departments for slices of a budget, as though the government that creates the currency was somehow short of it.

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. The real question was never about money. It was about whether the people existed, whether the skills could be taught, whether the classroom spaces 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.

Now I'm still here, still watching, still collecting those vintage textbooks. But I understand something I didn't understand when I started. This isn't just about me not becoming a chemistry teacher, or about those empty lab benches in Wandsworth. It's about every constituency where the resources exist alongside the need, while someone in Westminster says the cupboard is bare. The cupboard was never bare. It was locked.