Chile Forum

I'm having visa woes. I won't go into all the gory details, but a main issue seems to be needing to revalidate my teaching qualifications. Has anyone done this with the Ministry of Education? According to my local Extranjeria, it could take up to 12 months, during which time I couldn't even apply for a visa. Or work. I previously thought I wouldn't need to do it because I'm not going to teach in a school, and my qualifications are non-teaching first degree and MA, and then post-grad teaching qualification for high school (11-18).

Thanks!

(Nothing says back to normality, whatever that is, like a load of bureaucracy).

not sure exactly what you mean by re-validate (have they been validated for chilean bureacracy before?). My understanding was that for me to use my teaching degree to get a visa in chile, I need to get the degree stamped by the university in aus, stamped by the department of foreign affairs and trade in aus to say the uni's stamp is valid, and then stamped by they chilean consulate in australia to say the stamp from the dept of foreign affairs and trade is legit!

a bit of running around, but if you either do it yourself or get a runner to do it in your home country it is my understanding that all the stamps can be processed while you wait - depending on the institution etc of course.

hope that is what you were referring to...

I did all that, and they want more

It now looks like my employer no longer wants to employ me.

Just to clarify: I have a BA, MA and PGCE (PostGrad Cert in Education). I got these qualifications legalised by a notary in the UK, then at the Foreign Office, then the Chilean Consulate in London, then the External Affairs in Santiago. What the Extranjeria want now, apparantly, is for the Ministry of Education to revalidate them. From the visa requirements:
'En el caso de profesiones médicas o docentes, estos títulos deben ser revalidados'

According to Extranjeria lady, this will take 12 months and involve 'pruebas' of some sort.

Anyone know any differently?

I'm going to ask Charles' advice, but if anyone has any experience of this wonderful process, please let me know.

wow, never heard of that before. There are a few expat teachers at my kids school (a local chilean private school) so I will ask them to see if they know anything.

Humm most of the time I have been told not to claim to be a "profesor" or "docente" and rather to choose the heading of "monitor". They are all teaching positions but have different degree validation requirements in order to get a visa.

If your employer just requires you to have a visa of any sort, I would see if it's possible to go that route.

Thanks for your replies. We tried the 'monitor' thing but it didn't work .

Zandra and Charles have come to the rescue, so the situation is looking infinitley better!