Vengesai Mahlangove has been in Australia four days. He's never visited before and knows only what he's learned when searching the internet.

He hasn't seen the Goldfields town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, 600km east of Perth, where he is due to start work as a science teacher in two weeks.

He hasn't seen the house where he will live.

His wife, Loreen, is still packing up their former life in London and will not be joining him for six weeks. He's alone in Perth caring for his five-year-old daughter, Megan, who travelled with him.

But the 33-year-old Zimbabwean-born teacher could not be happier. Mr Mahlangove said yesterday, "It is frightening, butI've travelled a lot and, when I saw the advertisement about teaching in Australia, I loved the challenge."

Mr Mahlangove is one of dozens of teachers who will front West Australian classrooms next month after a bumper overseas recruitment drive. They have come from Kenya, Zimbabwe, Poland, Fiji, Canada and Britain to start a new life and help end the chronic teacher shortage that has plagued the state for years.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24918998-5006789,00.html