Coming to the UK

Vinod Chhabra, 35, originally from Sri Lanka is currently working in computing for a major film distributor in London. ‘I’ve worked in America as well and the opportunities in London are comparable – the wages are excellent so I am trying to get as much work done as I can while I’m here. I really don’t know what the future has in store so you have to make the most of what you’ve got,’ he says.

The shortage of teachers in the country recently meant that some schools closed their doors to children for a day as they pulled back to four-day weeks. So acute is the problem that teachers are being recruited directly from South Africa. Wendy Grant, 36, is a black deputy head teacher in an inner city school in London. ‘We’ve got teachers from South Africa, Australia and Ghana whose level of teaching is good, but at the end of the day we know that they are going to leave and we need teachers who are going to stay,’ she says.

Britain needs skilled workers and the issue is once again high on the national agenda as it was two generations ago. We are at a crossroads. Do we recruit from abroad, train up from within, or both?

NB: Some names in this article have been changed.