Syliva Day, who teaches Italian and English in Zurich, said Swiss teachers can expect to take home between pound;45,000 and pound;73,000 a year before tax for a 22-hour teaching week. They also get 12 weeks’ holiday a year.

Mrs Day, aged 48, who teaches at the state-run Raemibuehl School and is married to an Englishman, said Swiss professionals deserved their place at the top of international rankings. She said: “The Swiss school system is quite different to other European countries. It has different levels of teaching which require different standards of training.”

Most newly trained teachers do not get full-time jobs when they enter the profesion, Many are only given 30 per cent of the hours of a full time employee, she says. “Only after 10 to 15 years... are teachers usually employed full time.”

But Mrs Day, who has been a teacher for 23 years, said that staff worked hard for their money. “My average working week consists of between 50 and 55 hours because of all the preparation and marking, and I don’t even work full time,” she said.

“But we have a very liberal curriculum. Teachers are given a lot of freedom to devise their own lessons, choose the literature they like and create their own tests.”

She said: “I would rather teach here than in the UK. “I would be worried about ending up at a rough school in the UK but would also not like to be employed by a stricter school. I am too used to our liberal curriculum to go somewhere less free.”