Priya

I'm Priya, and I've wanted to teach English since I was sixteen, sitting in Mrs Ahmed's classroom at Small Heath School, watching her bring Othello to life for a room full of teenagers who thought Shakespeare was just dead words on a page. I grew up in Sparkbrook, daughter of a bus driver and a teaching assistant. My mum would come home with stories about the kids who struggled, the ones who just needed someone to believe they could do it. That's what I wanted to be for them.

After my English Literature degree at Birmingham City University, I worked as a supply teacher for three years, living with my parents to save money. Every day confirmed what I already knew: I belonged in a classroom. I collected vintage Penguin Classics from charity shops, imagining the lessons I'd build around them, the conversations I'd spark. By 2023, I had enough saved for a deposit on my own place and was ready to commit to teacher training.

I applied for Birmingham City University's PGCE programme in secondary English. The Department for Education was advertising a £10,000 bursary nationally for teacher training in shortage subjects like English. That bursary would cover my course fees and help with living costs while I trained. I was excited. The country needed English teachers, I was ready to train, and the funding was there to make it happen.

At my interview, I was told the bursary had been cut to £3,000 for my subject area in the West Midlands due to "regional recruitment adjustments." The admissions tutor seemed apologetic but matter-of-fact. "There is no funding for the full amount in this region," she explained. "The Department for Education has allocated different amounts to different areas based on their recruitment formulas."

I couldn't afford the course fees and living costs with just £3,000. Even living at home, the reduced bursary wouldn't cover the university fees, travel to placement schools, and basic expenses during a year when I couldn't work full-time. I asked if there were any other funding sources. "Unfortunately not," I was told. "The budget has been cut across the board for teacher training this year."

I tried Teach First as an alternative route into teaching. Their employment-based programme would let me earn while training. When I called their Birmingham office, I was told their partnership was oversubscribed with a two-year waiting list. "We cannot afford to run more places this year," the coordinator explained. "We're operating at capacity with current funding levels."

I applied to University of Wolverhampton's employment-based training route, thinking I could find a school placement myself. I discovered it required me to already have a teaching position at a partner school before I could join the programme. It was circular: I needed a job to get the training, but I needed the training to get the job.

I approached twelve secondary schools directly across Birmingham, asking about employment-based training opportunities. Every HR department gave me the same response: "We don't have capacity for trainee placements this year due to budget constraints." At King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls, the HR manager was particularly direct: "The budget has been cut for supporting trainees. We can't afford the mentor time or cover costs anymore."

As a backup, I applied to Coventry University's teacher training programme. I was informed that as a Birmingham resident, I'd pay higher course fees because I was applying outside my local authority area, and Birmingham City Council wouldn't provide additional support for students training elsewhere. The financial advisor at Coventry told me, "There is no funding available for cross-border placements. Each authority protects its own training budget now."

I accepted this logic at first. Everyone was saying the same thing: there was no money. It sounded reasonable. Budgets were tight, cuts had been made, tough choices were necessary. I started looking at other careers, thinking maybe I'd been naive about teaching.

But then I noticed something that didn't fit. Walking past Birmingham City University's education building one afternoon, I saw a poster advertising empty places on their primary teacher training course. Same building, same university, same department – but those courses had spaces going unfilled while secondary English training was oversubscribed. In the university library, I met other graduates desperate to train as secondary English teachers, all blocked by the same funding cuts, while primary courses struggled to recruit.

I started paying attention to the contradictions. At a local teaching jobs fair, headteachers complained about teacher shortages in panels scheduled right next to Department for Education stalls explaining why teacher training budgets had been reduced. I visited Small Heath School, my old secondary school, and saw three English classes being covered by non-specialist teachers because they couldn't recruit qualified English teachers. The head of English told me they'd love to take on trainee teachers but "we can't afford the additional costs anymore."

The building that used to house the West Midlands teacher training consortium still stood on Broad Street, now locked and empty. I walked past it regularly. The people existed – I knew dozens of graduates ready to train. The schools existed – they were crying out for English teachers. The training expertise existed – the universities had the programmes ready to run. What exactly was it that "there was no money" for?

That's when I started to understand. The government that prints the pound notes was telling me it couldn't find enough of them to train teachers for the schools that desperately needed them. The same government that issued the currency was claiming it couldn't afford to spend that currency on connecting ready teachers to empty classrooms. The real question was never about money. It was about whether the people existed, whether the skills could be taught, whether the schools needed teachers. They did. All of them.

The excuse wasn't a fact. It was a choice wrapped in the language of impossibility. It's like a household saying "we can't afford it," except households don't issue their 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 used to accept the excuse that "there was no money." I hear it differently now. What I experienced wasn't bad luck or economic reality. It was a series of political decisions made by people in the Department for Education who had alternatives. They chose to cut teacher training budgets while complaining about teacher shortages. They chose to create artificial scarcity in a profession facing real shortages. Every closed door I faced was someone choosing to keep it closed.

I'm still here, still watching, still ready to teach. But now I understand this isn't just my story. Walk through any constituency where people and needs exist side by side while someone in Westminster says the cupboard is bare, and you'll find the same pattern. The resources were always there. The choice was always political.