Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

Hiya,

We live in the UK and are both UK citizens in our twenties. My husband and I are wanting to move to Australia in the next couple of years and wondered if someone could give us some advice regarding both our careers?

I am a registered mental health nurse and from my understanding from other posts it is fairly easy to get a visa for Australia being a nurse as it is a trade that Australia wants?

My husband has a media and film degree from university and is looking at doing his teacher training for a year in September. People have told us that Australia do not accept UK teaching qualifications and that he shall have to retrain in Australia. Also, other posts have stated teaching jobs are incredibly hard to come by in Australia and that many of the posts for job vacancies are 'fake' as they just continue with the current postholder and extend their temporary contract.

Please could someone give us some advice as to whether he should do his teacher training in the UK or not bother?

Thanks,
Anna

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

Welcome to BE.

Please have a read through this from the BE Wiki, particularly about skills validation. most of your questions should be answered on there.
Are you a degree trained nurse, that seems to be essential now to get a positive skills validation.

Category:Australian Immigration : British Expat Wiki

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

Was your mental health nurse training at degree level?

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

Yes it was degree level

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

Well that is the first hurdle cleared.

You need be aware that any type of nursing is not that much in demand anymore, mainly due to state cutbacks and the political pressure to employ local graduates.

Experienced Mental health nurses are at an advantage as there is vey little mental health traing in the Nursing curriculum and there is no distinction made between general and MH nursing.

Most nurses working in MH have very little MH experience.

You also need to be aware that many MH services in Australia are dire and heavily reliant on medications and restraint, and are heavily medically led....be very careful about which jobs you may apply for if you are at all interested in your career.

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

Oh dear, that is not what I wanted to hear at all but thank you for your honesty! I work in a service that is very much person-centred and not medically led at all so that will be a big shock to my system I'm sure. I will have to have a good think about this career path and Australia is definitely where we want to be. Again, thank you.

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

There are good services around but you need to be sure before accepting a post.

For this reason be very wary of any offers of sponsorship and go for a skilled independent visa....then you can leave a Job if you don't like it.

Sponsorship effectively ties to you to an employer and is sometimes /often used to fill 'hard to fill' or unpopular positions.

Public services are usually, but not always, less medically led than private services

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

That's great thank you. Didn't realise that about sponsorship so will be wary of that :)

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

On the teaching question, no what you have been told is not exactly correct. Australia will not accept a three year BEd degree that some UK teachers will have as they want four years of tertiary education. So somebody that did a BA or BSC and then a PGCE should be fine.

If somebody has a three year teaching degree they would need to go back to university for another year. This does not need to be done in Australia, there is no requirement to retrain in Australia.

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

That's great thank you. He is planning to do a years teacher training PGCE so will total with 4 years of training.

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

Australia doesn't accept GTP or SCITT teacher training pathways - your husband would need to do a tertiary PGCE, based at a University - they also don't accept PGCEs from FE colleges.

It's also worth knowing that in NSW (I can't comment on other states) accreditation to teach is heavily based upoon the modules that you took in your undergraduate studies - you may have a full degree and a PGCE but they may also insist that specific/particular modules be additionally taken before accreditation is granted. This can make it painful if you have had a non teaching degree route into teaching.


S

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

On the teaching side, competition for permanent jobs is VERY fierce and hard to find for subjects other than maths and science

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

Thank you both for the comments regarding teaching. He has a 3 year undergraduate degree and will be doing a one year PGCE based at a university. I will get him to have a look further into the specific modules etc.

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

Yes, this. It's similar in NZ: the lack of basic training in mental health nursing means that MH nursing just isn't the same career here as in the UK.

Re: Couple needing career advice for moving to Australia
 

And electricshock? My friends daughter was zapped for postpartum psychosis. No chance whatsoever ogf getting her into a mother and baby unit or indeed in any unit at all.