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AsiaESLbound
Joined: 07 Jan 2010 Location: Truck Stop Missouri
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 9:55 pm Post subject: Last Minute Diploma Re-verifications from KCUE? |
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Are you getting the sudden last minute demand to submit your original degree to the Korean Council of University Education for re-verification of it's validity? Are they demanding your diploma number when in fact your diploma has no number? Are you being demanded to pay a 60,500 Won fee to the KCUE right now?
It was so urgent that I had to walk home in the rain to retrieve my original diploma today. My co-teacher said the KCUE is in charge of verifying degrees and it needs to be rechecked that all foreign teachers are in good manner. Basically what they are doing is re-verifying the validity of your visa to be in Korea; not simply that you have a valid diploma. This speaks volumes that an anti-foreigner sentiment is a fact here for all you pro Korea people out there such as Balzor not to be political about it. I'm well past 6 months into this job and will be more than happy to quit it if I have to pay the 60,500 fee. I feel it's an unreasonable last minute demand and it's unreasonable to be expected to pay the KCUE. My co-teachers understand and agree where I'm coming from on this, but can't question authority on it.
Might they be demanding soon we get an FBI check done to continue teaching the rest of our 1 year visa without realizing that takes a long while? |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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Isn't it just one rogue provincial board of education that's forcing all their public school teachers to do this? I haven't heard a whisper. |
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AsiaESLbound
Joined: 07 Jan 2010 Location: Truck Stop Missouri
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 10:16 pm Post subject: |
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Chungnam province is doing this right now. I told them it can wait until the district or province agrees to pay the 60,500 fee. I have a resignation letter and plan B ready should they not pay it or at least cancel this last minute demand. Whoever is demanding it needs to born the cost; not me. |
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mmstyle
Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Location: wherever
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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OP,
Not in my district. I actually called immi today about the latest round of requirements, and the woman I spoke to assured me that if what they have on file for me is an apostilled copy (it is) then I will not need to do anything with my degree in order to renew.
Trying to get my school to understand that I have to start dealing with renewal now (because the FBI check & apostille from the Dept of State can take months) has been difficult. But then again, I think my current CT wouldn't care if I was unable to renew due to his negligence.
Is your school refusing to tell you who is "demanding" this? |
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Los Angeloser
Joined: 26 Aug 2010 Location: Korea
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Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 10:54 pm Post subject: |
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Let's say you have 6 months remaining on your contract and make 2 million won per month. That means you'll be making 12 million won in the foreseeable future. Pay the money, be happy you have a job, and take it easy. |
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AsiaESLbound
Joined: 07 Jan 2010 Location: Truck Stop Missouri
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 12:52 am Post subject: |
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Los Angeloser wrote: |
Let's say you have 6 months remaining on your contract and make 2 million won per month. That means you'll be making 12 million won in the foreseeable future. Pay the money, be happy you have a job, and take it easy. |
It's not about the money, the principal of this issue is it's a huge insult to be expected to pay a fairly high fee for re-verification of diploma when immigration already done this 7 months ago and 2 more times after I arrived in Korea. Like I said, I have plan B and can leave Korea when I want. I would prefer to finish the job and go travel early next year a few months instead of going back home right now, but I can do just that instead and still pull off a nice long tropical Asia trip before Christmas.
It's reasonable to expect an employer to bear the burden of validating diplomas after candidates and employees submit them. I already paid around $200 in securing the visa 7 months ago which involved diploma verification. Doesn't immigration verify diplomas with our home country's department of education? It's also reasonable to expect to not be subjected to new visa rules until you were to renew or apply for another visa.
It's easy enough to provide the diploma as I did today and 3 times before in total, but I shouldn't have to pay again. Keep in mind I'm not renewing nor applying for a new visa, I'm being bothered with unnecessary nonsense just over 6 months into a 1 year E-2 visa at this point, but not told who is initiating this action this time nor before. When I requested to talk to our coordinator today, I was told her phone is broken so I told my co-teacher this can wait until she can talk about it. She may not yet know the fee is this high and how unreasonable this is. I'll try to find out tomorrow what her position is on it and why this again, but involving the KCUE instead of immigration. I do know KCUE is only offering the service of diploma verifications if you are renewing, in Korea and need this verification to replace an apostille from your home country; not demanding them so someone else ordered me to do it without announcing who they are and why. This is when I threatened I'll be happy to leave Korea in 30 days if it's not canceled or not paid for by who initiated this demand.
This blog from someone who called immigration in July talks about you will never have to submit your diploma again after submitting it once. While ithttp://stafford.squarespace.com/journal/2010/7/20/new-visa-regulations-e2-the-facts.html
blogger wrote: |
On this point I rang immigration. They confirmed that once they have received your degree information you won't have to submit it again. In addition I raised the topic of the costly sending of degrees back and forth to get Apostilles. Immigration noted you can get your degree information verified by The Korean Council for University Education. Although one wonders if they are on the same page as Immigration, looking at the KCUE's site, they state that we are unable to process requests by individuals.
Although I see one way of getting around this to be to get your school to get the verification done. The cost of verification ranges between W60000 and W66000 depending on where your degree was issued and you should expect the process to take about 5 weeks.
Having done so, you will never have to submit your degree to immigration again! (so long as you're extending your visa or changing jobs in country etc.) |
You could accurately consider a degree re-verification demand to be reconsideration of visa status with an aim to weed foreigners out or at best, inconvenience them. What kind of country or employer re-validates a visa during it's period after the documents were already validated? Normally, something like this would only occur if an individual is suspected of a crime like submitting fake documents.
If I wasn't wanted, couldn't I just easily been fired and given an exit order instead? I don't know if I was the only one, but I'm suspecting that I am since no one else reported receiving this request though I only put this up 2 hours ago at 4:30pm. Please do let us know if you too are subject to this or if you know anything about it I don't know. |
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young_clinton
Joined: 09 Sep 2009
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 2:10 am Post subject: |
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AsiaESLbound wrote: |
Chungnam province is doing this right now. I told them it can wait until the district or province agrees to pay the 60,500 fee. I have a resignation letter and plan B ready should they not pay it or at least cancel this last minute demand. Whoever is demanding it needs to born the cost; not me. |
You might want to reconsider your resignation letter or any quitting threats. They have plenty of foriegn applicants in Korea right now that would quickly fill your position...................things are not the same! |
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NYC_Gal

Joined: 08 Dec 2009
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 2:34 am Post subject: |
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Tell them that it's in your home country, and that you'd be glad to submit a notarized, apostilled copy (per the new rules starting Sept 1 for NEW contracts) if you renew next year. |
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AsiaESLbound
Joined: 07 Jan 2010 Location: Truck Stop Missouri
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 2:44 am Post subject: |
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young_clinton wrote: |
AsiaESLbound wrote: |
Chungnam province is doing this right now. I told them it can wait until the district or province agrees to pay the 60,500 fee. I have a resignation letter and plan B ready should they not pay it or at least cancel this last minute demand. Whoever is demanding it needs to born the cost; not me. |
You might want to reconsider your resignation letter or any quitting threats. They have plenty of foriegn applicants in Korea right now that would quickly fill your position...................things are not the same! |
Yep, I'm aware of the situation there. However no one wants a quitter in the middle of the semester unless there is a really bad problem warranting removing a teacher in which case, a termination would be due. I'm only being tested once again, because if they really wanted me to go, then I'd been let go instead of challenged with a ill planned mindless manufactured problem.
The other thing that perturbs me when my co-teacher told me diplomas without a control number are usually fakes and many foreigners are passing them off as genuine, but it's fact that American diplomas don't have a number on them. I went to school for 4.5 years at the cost of $85,000 total and then being told my degree is a fake? It's from the University of Michigan for Christ sakes. I explained the US Dept. of Education keeps record of diplomas and school accreditation. And that employees/candidates order transcripts to be directly sent to whom is requesting verification in which case I already did in obtaining this visa. |
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Los Angeloser
Joined: 26 Aug 2010 Location: Korea
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 3:49 am Post subject: |
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I'm sure you've heard about choosing your battle(s), this is a small one in the big picture and like you say it's not even about the money. I'm not sure of your plans for next year but if you stir things up they will remember and won't want you to renew -- another bridge bites the dust. I know, one year at the same place can be long enough but still it's better if they want you to stay rather than go bye bye. |
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AsiaESLbound
Joined: 07 Jan 2010 Location: Truck Stop Missouri
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:05 am Post subject: |
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Los Angeloser wrote: |
I'm sure you've heard about choosing your battle(s), this is a small one in the big picture and like you say it's not even about the money. I'm not sure of your plans for next year but if you stir things up they will remember and won't want you to renew -- another bridge bites the dust. I know, one year at the same place can be long enough but still it's better if they want you to stay rather than go bye bye. |
My co-teacher does want me to stay as she considers me a friend. Even my new 2nd co-teacher supports me on this too as she decided this week she likes me too and wants me to stay. They both implore me not to go through with a resignation. I explained I want to stay, but that someone in office outside our school without enough work to do who is only challenging me just to give me a hard time as a control measure to up their high and mighty personal pride. It's a way of putting me in check as a control measure by some bored in the office trying to create something to do, but an extremely offending one at best. My co-teachers clearly understand, but can't act on it as they know more than I do about work matters here as to not question authority regardless how dumb someone up in office is.
Those at the district office don't realize how darned ridiculously busy we are in our English Zone and hard I worked to get that degree. And how I'll probably be paying my dues the rest of my life for choosing to take out huge debt to study just so I could arrive at this point in my life. Teaching in Korea. It's from one of the top well known public universities in the world and it's already been verified at my expense. The University of Michegan.
This is one daft request from someone aloof on the subject just rattling their saber to show some power. The co-teachers know it, but can't question authority though I'm not afraid to do just that. The memo requesting it wasn't from immi, it was from my district office thinking it's not big deal, but they will learn it does matter greatly to me and they will pay the fee with an apology to me or I go. The coordinator didn't answer her phone and probably darned well now knows it does matter to me upon seeing my caller ID, but wasn't yet ready to talk about this ill planned last second maneuver.
I say they can stuff it. If they don't like it, then they can show me the door and I'll talk about them the rest of my life. lol I'm no kid anymore and not ignorant on recognizing escalation measures to challenge people in business situations. I'm sure it's the first real challenge I've received from this individual who fails to even identify themselves, but I get the gist that it's our coordinators boss. It's always a power struggle involving politics between somebody vs. somebody yada yada. I do need to ring immi just to find out if they are requiring districts to send this down to teachers. I think they don't unless renewing a visa, because no one else is reporting they have my situation. |
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OculisOrbis

Joined: 17 Jul 2006
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 6:50 am Post subject: |
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If you know the provincial FT coordinator's name (Raquel Carpio) you can find her on facebook. She uses that account for some FT communication. Just add her and send a message(s) to her, in addition to continued calls. |
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AsiaESLbound
Joined: 07 Jan 2010 Location: Truck Stop Missouri
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Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2010 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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OculisOrbis wrote: |
If you know the provincial FT coordinator's name (Raquel Carpio) you can find her on facebook. She uses that account for some FT communication. Just add her and send a message(s) to her, in addition to continued calls. |
Thanks for the info I lacked, it didn't go that far as to contact Raquel. I finally spoke with my district coordinator this morning who said you only have to re-verify your diploma if renewing for another year. I was right and won. No one has to do this mid contract. It was a challenge I simply beat. Why a challenge instead of simple miscommunication? I was required to immediately produce the original diploma again yesterday instead of being told to bring it today. After my co-teacher told them the fuss I had with this issue, it came from the horses mouth today that I am wanted to stay another year and don't have to do re-verify the diploma since I'm going to grad school next year instead which suffices as an apology in dropping the issue. What ever is the case, I'm right. |
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