As most ESL teachers probably know by now, the Korean Immigration Services has ‘improved’ the E2 visa process.   You can find the details here.  Basically the criminal check has gone national, and now they’re verifying our qualifications.  For people who haven’t come to Korea yet, this won’t be a problem, just follow whatever instructions you are given locally and you should be fine.  But what if you’re already in Korea?

Here’s where things get sticky.  Originally the plan was to have the diplomas submitted the the KCUE for verification.   Unfortunately the KCUE won’t accept any  personal submissions. In their own words…

So your boss or future boss will have to get it done on your behalf.  But wait, I spoke to the KCUE two weeks ago and they told me:

‘Sorry, but the verification service has been suspended because we’re dealing with aback log of about 800 requests.’

Naturally my next question was ‘when will the service be available again?’

The answer, ‘It’s not official yet, but we’re probably going to discontinue the service’.

So where to turn to now?  The Korean consulates in your home country.  In my case that means Canada.  In Canada we have Korean consulates in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.  So to get your degree verified here’s what each Consulate is looking for:

Basically they each want the same thing, a notarized copy of the diploma, passport, some money for the service and pre-paid return postage.  BUT…

THE NOTARY HAS GOT TO COME FROM THE CONSULATE’S JURISDICTION.  The consulates are not going to budge on this point.  I sent emails to each of them asking if making an exception for the embassy in Seoul would be possible .  The answer was a polite, diplomatic ‘no’.

It is possible that that the KCUE will continue their verification service, but for those of you who have contracts coming up there may not be time to wait for maybe.  So here’s the deal for verification as things stand right now:

Either:

Send the docs to your family (or a friend) in Canada and have them take care of the notarization on you behalf.  Then your family can forward everything along to the correct consulate who will then send it back to your family (or friend) who can in turn send it back to you here in Korea.

Or:

Go back to Canada and do it yourself.  More expensive, but easier.

Anyways, that’s everything I know as of now.   To anyone who reads this remember I’m just a blogger and you should *ALWAYS* verify stuff from source whenever possible.  To that end,  here’s all the relevant contact info you’ll need if you are unsure about the accuracy of anything posted here:

Korean Immigration  Service (KIS) E2 Notice
KIS English Help Line: 1345 (from any phone in Korea)

KCUE Degree Verification Web-page
KCUE English Contact Number: 02-6393-5225

And for the Canucks:
Montreal Consulate:  montreal@mofat.go.kr
Ottawa Embassy: canada@mofat.go.kr
Toronto Consulate: toronto@mofat.go.kr
Vancouver Consulate:  vancouver@mofat.go.kr