Natasha

I never thought I would become a teacher. After Southampton University, where I studied physics, I spent three years in tech consulting, good money, interesting problems. But something was missing. I kept thinking about Dr Martinez, my sixth form physics teacher, who had this way of making electromagnetic fields feel like magic you could touch. She showed me that physics was not just equations but a language for understanding how the world works. I wanted to do that for someone else.

My hobby probably says something about who I am. I collect vintage scientific instruments, barometers and galvanometers from the 1950s and 60s, usually broken when I find them. There is something therapeutic about bringing them back to life, cleaning the brass, rewinding the coils, watching the needle swing back to where it should be. Everything can be fixed if you understand how it works.

In early 2023, I applied for secondary physics teacher training through the University of Reading's School of Education. I had done my research. Physics teachers were desperately needed across Berkshire, Surrey, everywhere really. The training bursary was £27,000, which would cover most of my living costs during the one-year programme. I met all the requirements: good degree, classroom experience through volunteering, clear motivation. The interview went well.

Then came the phone call. The admissions tutor, Dr Patel, sounded genuinely apologetic. "Natasha, I have some disappointing news. While you have been accepted onto the programme, the physics training bursary has been reduced from £27,000 to £10,000 for the South East region this year." She paused. "The Department for Education says there is no budget for the full amount."

£10,000 would not cover my rent, let alone food and transport. I had savings, but not enough to live on for a year while training full-time. "Is there any chance it might go back up?" I asked.

"We hope so, but Treasury constraints mean it is unlikely," Dr Patel said. "I am really sorry. We know how much schools need physics teachers."

I deferred my place, thinking it might be a temporary issue. Over the summer of 2023, I applied to other universities across Berkshire and Surrey. University of Surrey, Royal Holloway, Roehampton. Each gave the same response: reduced bursaries, Treasury constraints, sorry. It was like hitting the same wall over and over.

In autumn 2023, I decided to visit the University of Reading's education faculty in person. Maybe there had been some mistake, maybe the funding had been restored. Walking through the School of Education building, I could not help but notice how empty it felt. Entire floors of seminar rooms stood unused, doors propped open to reveal rows of empty chairs. There was a computer lab with dozens of workstations, all switched off, dust settling on the keyboards.

I got talking to Mike, one of the technicians. He had been there for fifteen years and remembered when things were different. "We used to run physics training cohorts of 30 students," he told me. "Big, lively groups. Now we struggle to fill places for 12, and half of those are on reduced bursaries so they drop out halfway through."

"But surely if there are empty places, they could increase the funding to fill them?" I said.

Mike laughed, but not in a happy way. "That is the mad thing. We have got all this space and equipment just sitting here. Same with the partner schools, they are crying out for physics teachers but cannot get the trainees. The head at my daughter's school told me they have been advertising for a physics teacher for two years. Two years!"

That conversation stayed with me. I started seeing the contradiction everywhere. Walking past local secondary schools, I would notice job vacancy signs for physics teachers still up months later. I talked to friends who worked in education, and they all told the same story: teacher shortages, empty training places, reduced funding. It made no sense.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised what I was looking at. The people existed: graduates like me who wanted to teach. The need existed: schools desperate for physics teachers. The infrastructure existed: university departments with empty classrooms and unused equipment. The expertise existed: lecturers and mentors ready to train us.

So what exactly was it that "there was no money" for? The government that prints the pounds told me it could not find enough of them to connect willing teachers to waiting classrooms. But I had seen those classrooms at the University of Reading. They were real. The students who wanted to fill them were real. The schools that needed us were real.

I started to understand that what I had been told was not a fact about the world. It was a choice dressed up as an impossibility. The Department for Education had decided to reduce the bursaries. The Treasury had decided that connecting teachers to training was less important than keeping some number on a spreadsheet looking smaller.

The government that issues the currency chose not to spend the currency that would solve the problem. That is not an accounting problem. That is a political decision.

I am still here, still watching. I work part-time now, doing some freelance consulting, and I volunteer at a local secondary school helping with physics lessons. The teacher there, Mrs Kumar, is fantastic but stretched thin. She teaches across three year groups because they cannot recruit anyone else. "If only we had more people like you," she says, "people who understand the subject and want to share 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 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.

What I understand now is that this is not just my story. It is happening in every constituency where qualified people and urgent needs exist side by side while someone in Westminster says the cupboard is bare. The cupboard is never bare for the people who control what goes into it.