I've started a spreadsheet, to help Mr MigratingFishSwim & I gather information, and make a decision about where to emigrate to. I now realise a database might have been more suited to the task!
The first three columns I entered are countries where English is an official language; a primary language; and an important language. To that I added columns listing EU countries, British Overseas Territories and Commonwealth Countries (to ease work visa & permit issues).
My latest columns are: which countries have British-style or International schools (so fiancé's teaching experience will be approved); what working conditions (including rights and holiday allowance) are like; what are the standards of healthcare and whether it's state-provision or privatised; which countries fit in with the British Pet Passport scheme (so our cats could avoid/reduce quarantine if we had to return to the UK). And finally, one that's a bit more fun, but very much fits in with our values and reasons for emigrating: which countries are in the word's top 100 dive sites.
After I'd listed 73 countries worldwide where English is important, Mr MigratingFishSwim realised he wants to stay within Europe. At first I was a bit annoyed, felt my time had been wasted, but I soon realised that seeing my list had helped Mr MFS gain clarity, so all is well. Thought I must admit, I'm hopeful he'll consider some Atlantic Ocean options as well...
Based on what I've learned so far (I've now finished the excellent David Hampshire book Living and Working Abroad, but we still have four other books to get through!), Cyprus and Malta are really appealing. But I realise that this needs tempering according to Mr MFS' research on teaching around the world.
He & I will be doing more research later today, I'm really looking forward to hearing about teaching options around the world - that will be practical information to correlate with our "Ooooh that sounds nice"-type data.
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