I am currently in Taiwan on a marriage ARC.
I am looking for a job teaching English, but I have left my degree in my home country (Canada). Would I need my original copy of my degree and transcripts to teach English? And would my degree need to be authenticated (if so, how to do that)? Or could the employer/ school contact my university directly to obtain verification of my credentials?
In addition, I changed my last name since I graduated, would it matter that the last name is different than on my other documents ?
Alternatively, would I even need proof of degree if I do a certificate such as TESOL in Taiwan?
What do you mean âoriginal degreeâ? Iâm pretty sure if you lose it, you can ask your university (at a cost, of course) for a replacement one. But yes, youâll need an official copy of the degree and itâll need to be authenticated by whatever TECO (Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office) is closest to your old university.
And whether youâre TESOL certified is completely irrelevant to you needing proof you graduated college.
I donât think you need to go back, but I do think it needs to be authenticated at a TECO in Canada. All you need to do is ship it and have them send it back. Usually you can do this through the local immigration office. I donât know how much Covid has slowed things down though.
the easiest way is to contact your university and order a new copy. You can have them sent it to the TECO office. From. there you can get it mailed to Taiwan
No one can answer this for you except your current company of employment (their requirements) and the company that issued your degree (can make another copy or not from abroad).
I would venture a confident guess that if youre passport is from a native English speaking country, and your physical appearance also looks like you from such a country, the degree situation gets more flexible. Note that i am not saying white.
Also depends if you are seeking employmnet with government.run.schools aor private. The latter being less strict in general. Universities now are more strict. That seems to be more due to over supply of schooling services and.lack of students compared to before. But many universities are companies, like a cram school, and in this situation if you are white and hold a passport that ignorant people view as also being white, you are likely fine.
A school a few years ago had a flip out about me not having the original everything. My parents spent a bajillion (Iâm pretty sure it was over USD$100 next day and and trackable) to send me my undergrad diploma.
My favorite requirement was my teaching license, which they needed the âoriginalâ of. Thing is, most states in the US donât give you an official anything because licensed teachers can be looked up on the stateâs DPI (department of public instruction) website, which is going to be a lot harder to forge than a piece of paper in a fancy document holder. The only thing DPI sent me was an email with a PDF of a certificate that showed my license number, what I was certified in, and the expiration, which any school on earth could confirm by going to the DPI website (which is a government website). But that wouldnât cut it for Taiwanâs public schools. They wanted âthe originalâ license. After quite literally fighting me on it for days, I told them that if they ever plan on hiring an American teacher, theyâre going to need to rethink their ridiculous means of âconfirming the qualificationsâ of their teachers. Eventually, they accepted a print off of the certificate from DPI and a screen shot of the website that showed my info, but they still acted like the whole thing was very suspicious.
Interestingly, when they decided I needed to have a Chinese translation of every document, they accepted my use of MSpaint in labeling everything in Chinese. If I were them, Iâd care more about an official translation of documents than the easily-verifiable certification, but Iâm not them.
(I see @Explant just posted something very similar to below butâŚ) your best bet is to start applying for jobs and see what they decide they need from you. Every school seems to have its unique quirks, and the labor bureau and ministry of ed changes their requirements literally whenever they feel like it.
Thanks for all your replies. I wrote to the TECO office in Vancouver and this is the reply. I am very surprised they need my passport. Has any one else had experience with sending a passport to TECO? I wonder why they would need it since it is such an important document.
Jurisdiction: This office ONLY certifies documents issued or notarized by competent authorities in and for British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut.
If your Canadian RCMP certificate contains finger prints, it is issued form RCMP in Ottawa ON, please contact our Ottawa office for authentication, itâs web: www.roc-taiwan.org/ca
Please have following mail to our office for degree/diploma authentication:
Passport
Original diploma (If copy version is provided, it has to be pre-notarized by the Bureau of Consular Affairs in Taiwan; if applying more than one copy of degree authentication, each copy has to be pre-notarized by the Bureau of Consular Affairs)
Authentication fee: CAD$20/copy (does not need to pay authentication fee, if the diploma was pre-notarized by the Bureau of Consular Affairs in Taiwan)
International returning postage CAD$72
Please purchase a bank draft in Canadian dollar for total payment, payable to: TECO in Vancouver. The bank draft has to have âMagnetic Ink Character Recognitionâ to meet the deposit requirement of local bank here.
Remarks: To apply UBC or SFU or KPU or Douglas College or University of Saskatchewan or University of the Fraser Valley University diploma authentication needs to submit a sealed official transcript for verification purpose. Official transcript will be kept as reference file at this office.
yeah, I usually try to go in person when possible. itâs the same for visas. you need to give it to a travel agent and they mail it to some office. A bit scary, but it can be replaced
Reflecting my own current ignorance of immigration laws: do you actually need the degree to teach? I had a vague impression the degree was necessary for the visa, but not necessarily the job - so if youâve already got a marriage ARC, Iâm not sure how necessary the degree is legally.
Now, needing to show it in order to get the job, thatâs a whole other matter.
If itâs really a JFRV based ARC then it should have in red letters on it that you donât need a work permit to work. Basically you have an open work permit. Therefore jobs at a cram school donât have to apply for a work permit, so you wouldnât need your degree. They might still ask you for one though. Public schools or international schools will almost certainly still want to see it.
All the schools I ever applied and worked for, even after getting the JFRV, just asked for a copy of it. Like a scanned, emailed PDF copy of it. Thatâs it. They never asked to see the thing in person. As for translating it, All the schools I worked for did it themselves. Never had to send it to TECO.
I think each school though will have different requirements though.
