Kamal

I grew up in Moss Side watching my mum leave for the night shift, cleaning offices in town so she could buy my chemistry textbooks. She'd come home at six in the morning with bleach under her fingernails and ask if I'd done my homework. I promised her I'd use my degree to give back to kids from our area, kids whose mums were doing the same work she was doing.

After graduating from Manchester Metropolitan University with a 2:1 in chemistry, I spent two years working as a lab technician, saving money and building experience while I applied for teacher training programmes. I knew exactly what I wanted to do: teach secondary chemistry in schools like the one I'd attended, where half the science teachers weren't actually qualified in the subjects they were covering.

In September 2022, I submitted my application to the Manchester Metropolitan University PGCE programme. I was buzzing about it – this was my chance to come full circle, to stand in front of teenagers who looked like I had and show them that chemistry wasn't just for posh kids from the suburbs. The university had always been strong in teacher training, and chemistry teachers were desperately needed across Manchester.

Two weeks later, I got a call from the admissions office. The woman sounded genuinely apologetic. "We'd love to offer you a place," she said, "but the government has cut chemistry teacher training bursaries from £27,000 to £10,000 this year. With the reduced funding, we can only offer twelve places instead of the usual twenty. Unfortunately, your application was unsuccessful."

I couldn't understand it. My academic credentials were strong, my personal statement was solid, and chemistry was supposed to be a shortage subject. How could they be turning people away? I asked her to explain the funding cut. "Treasury spending constraints," she said. "The Department for Education had to make tough choices about where to allocate resources."

I tried the University of Manchester next. Their education department was warmer on the phone, more encouraging about my background and motivation. "You're exactly the kind of candidate we want," the admissions tutor told me. "But here's the problem – we've been told we can't expand our intake to meet demand. There's no funding for additional places."

That phrase again: no funding. It started following me around like a shadow. I spent the next four months applying to programmes across the North West. University of Cumbria: "Budget cuts mean we're running a reduced cohort this year." Edge Hill University: "The Department for Education allocation doesn't cover the number of applicants we'd like to accept." Each rejection came with the same explanation, delivered by admissions staff who seemed as frustrated as I was.

In March 2023, I was walking back from another unsuccessful interview when I passed the old Didsbury Teacher Training Centre. It had been closed the previous year due to what the local paper called "budget cuts." The building was still there, obviously, just locked up with a sign saying it was no longer in use.

But something caught my eye. The windows weren't boarded up, and through them I could see everything still in place: rows of empty desks arranged for seminars, unused smartboards mounted on the walls, filing cabinets that looked full of teaching materials. There were whiteboards with faded lesson plans still visible, bookshelves lined with education textbooks, even a projector cart parked in the corner. The place looked like everyone had just walked out one day and never come back.

I stood there for ten minutes, staring through that window. The building was perfectly functional – heated, lit, equipped with everything you'd need to train teachers. The only thing missing was the decision to open the doors and let people like me walk in.

That same week, I went to a teaching recruitment fair at Manchester Central Library, hoping to find alternative routes into the profession. That's where I met Aaron, a chemistry graduate from Preston who'd been going through exactly the same thing. He'd been rejected from four different programmes, all with the same explanation about funding constraints and reduced places.

"The mad thing is," Aaron said, "I went past Preston College last month and they've got a whole education wing that's barely being used. Lecture halls, IT suites, the lot. Just sitting there empty while they tell us there's no capacity for teacher training."

We started talking to other people at the fair. Sarah from Bolton, turned away from three programmes. James from Liverpool, same story. Marcus from Blackburn, told the government couldn't fund his place despite the fact that his local secondary school was advertising for chemistry teachers with starting salaries of £35,000.

The pattern became impossible to ignore. Everywhere we looked, there were qualified graduates who wanted to teach, secondary schools desperate for science teachers, and training facilities sitting unused. The people existed. The buildings existed. The jobs existed. But somehow, according to every institution we spoke to, "there was no money" to connect them.

I used to accept that explanation. It sounded reasonable – governments have limited resources, tough choices have to be made. Everyone I spoke to accepted it. Even the admissions staff seemed to accept it, as though "no funding" was like "no oxygen" – a simple fact about the physical world.

But the more I looked around Manchester Central, the more the excuse stopped making sense. The government that prints pound notes and mints coins was telling me it couldn't find enough of them to train people who were standing right there, ready to work in jobs that desperately needed filling.

That's when I started to understand something I hadn't understood at the start. The real question was never about money. It was about whether the people existed – they did. Whether the skills could be taught – they could. Whether the materials and facilities were available – they were, sitting empty in buildings across the North West.

The excuse wasn't a fact about the economy. It was a choice about priorities, wrapped in the language of impossibility. The government that issues the currency chose not to spend the pounds that would have opened those training centres, filled those empty lecture halls, and connected graduates like me to the classrooms that needed us.

I'm still here, still watching, still applying for teaching positions when they come up. But I hear the phrase "no funding" differently now. I know it's not the end of a conversation about what's possible. It's the beginning of a conversation about what's been decided, and by whom, and whether those decisions serve the people who need the work and the children who need the teachers.

This isn't just my story. It's the story of every constituency where people and needs exist side by side while someone in Westminster says the cupboard is bare.