Selena Fisk, a 24-year-old Australian teacher, stepped off a plane in London a month ago and walked straight into a temporary job teaching sports and citizenship at Prospect college in Reading.
In the summer the Queenslander will board another flight to travel around Europe, then come back to England to look for another job.
She is paid pound;650 a week through a recruitment agency and is confident that she could walk out of the Reading job, if she wanted to, and find another job paying more the next day.
“You’re always told at home that it’s so easy to get a job, being Australian over here. People love us,” she said. “If I wanted to leave next week, I would have every confidence that I’d get a job anywhere else.”
While she was enjoying her job at Prospect college and keen to serve out her fixed-term contract, her Australian friends in Britain had no long-term commitment to English education, and were happy to chop and change between agencies and jobs.
“Everybody negotiates all the time to raise their pay. If it’s not good enough, they’re willing to move on. It’s pretty well-known that you can get what you want, if you work hard enough.”
