Zoya

I grew up watching my parents work eighteen-hour days in their restaurant in Tower Hamlets, always calculating: how many covers to break even, how much to set aside for rent, whether we could afford new equipment. Numbers were survival in our house, but they were also beautiful. When my younger cousins struggled with algebra, I'd spread their homework across our kitchen table after closing time, showing them how equations were just puzzles waiting to be solved. The moment their faces lit up when they finally understood, that's when I knew.

I spent three years as a data analyst at a fintech company after graduating from Queen Mary with a mathematics degree. The pay was good, the work was fine, but every month I found myself thinking about those kitchen table moments. I wanted to give other kids what my cousins got from me: the confidence that comes from understanding how numbers work, the power that comes from seeing patterns where others see chaos. I decided to become a secondary maths teacher.

In September 2023, I applied for the Mathematics Teacher Training Programme through the University College London Institute of Education. I had researched everything: the course structure, the placement schools, even which tube stations were closest to the campus. I was ready. The admissions officer, a woman called Dr Sarah Chen, was encouraging about my application but then delivered what she presented as unfortunate news.

"Bursaries for maths teachers in London have been reduced from £27,000 to £15,000," she told me over the phone. "The Department for Education has set national recruitment targets that ignore regional needs. We simply don't have the funding to support more trainees."

It sounded reasonable. Budgets are tight everywhere, I thought. I thanked her and said I'd consider my options.

I tried Goldsmiths University instead. Their coordinator, Dr Michael Roberts, was equally apologetic. "Treasury spending rules mean education budgets are fixed regardless of demand," he explained when I called. "We'd love to take on more trainee teachers, especially in maths, but the money just isn't there."

Again, it made sense. The Treasury controls government spending, I told myself. They have to make hard choices.

Determined not to give up, I contacted the Teach First programme directly. They had always marketed themselves as placing teachers where they were needed most, particularly in challenging areas. Surely they would understand the need for maths teachers in East London. The recruitment manager, Emma Phillips, was warm but firm when she called me back.

"I'm afraid our London cohort is capped due to budgetary constraints from central government," she said. "The funding allocation was set before we knew how many quality candidates would apply. It's frustrating for us too."

I accepted this explanation like I had accepted the others. Government departments compete for limited resources. Tough decisions have to be made. That's how the system works.

But three weeks later, I was walking past the UCL Institute of Education on my way to meet friends in Camden. I stopped outside the main building, remembering my phone call with Dr Chen. That's when I saw them: bright yellow posters in the ground floor windows advertising unfilled places on their teacher training programme. Not just one or two places. Multiple courses with spaces still available.

I walked inside. The reception area was quiet, too quiet for what should have been peak training season. I asked the receptionist about the Mathematics Teacher Training Programme.

"Oh yes, we still have places," she said cheerfully. "Would you like some information?"

"But I was told there wasn't funding for more trainees," I replied.

She looked confused. "The programme is running. We just don't have as many students as we'd like."

I took the stairs to the education floors. Seminar room after seminar room was empty. Some had chairs stacked against walls, as though they hadn't been used in weeks. Others were set up for classes that clearly weren't happening. The building had capacity for twice as many trainees as were enrolled, maybe more.

Walking back down to the lobby, I counted the empty spaces: twenty-four chairs in one room, eighteen in another, a lecture hall that could easily seat eighty but showed no signs of recent use. The facilities existed. The qualified academics existed, standing ready to teach. The schools that desperately needed maths teachers existed, some of them within walking distance of where I stood.

I started to wonder: if the people exist, and the building exists, and the need exists, what exactly is it that "there is no money" for?

The government that issues the pound had chosen not to spend the pounds that would connect people like me to this work. That was a political decision dressed as an accounting problem.

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.

I'm still here, still watching, still wanting to teach. I understand now that my story is not unique to me or even to teaching. It is the story of every constituency where people and needs exist side by side while someone in Westminster says the cupboard is bare. The cupboard was never the problem. The problem was the decision not to open it.