A GWENT man has hit out at a decision to refuse him a grant for teacher training - despite government efforts to recruit teachers.

Adrian Cottrell (pictured) had his application for a grant to train as a maths teacher turned down because he cannot prove the five years he recently spent in America was only a temporary arrangement.

Monmouthshire county council said the student support regulations say an applicant has to live in the UK for three years before a course starts.

Mr Cottrell, of Elan Way, Caldicot, had intended registering at the University of Bath on its Post Graduate Certificate of Education with Qualified Teacher Status course. He has now signed for unemployment benefit as he cannot afford to pay the fees and cover his living expenses.

Mr Cottrell, 30, will not receive tuition fees or a training salary of £6,000 for ten months, and has lost the opportunity to apply for a student loan.

Mr Cottrell said when he moved to America he always intended to return to the UK. He has seven years experience of working with children, and said he had been fooled by the government's policy of trying to recruit people to train as teachers.

He said: "They are classing me as an overseas student but I have lived in Monmouthshire for 24 years of my life."

A council spokesman said its hands were tied and that Mr Cottrell had to prove that he had intended coming back to the UK.

He said: "The council has tried to help. We have done our best to accommodate Mr Cottrell. The problem is he left the country in October 1996 and came back in February 2001.

"The student support regulations state that you have to be resident for three years before the start of an academic year. We did ask him to provide evidence of supporting a home but in consultation with the Department for Education and Skills we are now asking him to provide evidence that his job in the US was of a temporary nature. If it was temporary then we can look at the application again."

A spokeswoman for DFES confirmed eligibility for support was based primarily on residency rather than citizenship.