Over the past few decades, more and more Canadians are taking jobs overseas to help students learn English as a second language. It’s a great paying job, and you get the chance to meet people from different countries while immersing yourself in their culture.
It’s not as simple as packing your bags and buying a plane ticket, however. And if you don’t take the necessary steps to make sure you have the right documents and the authentication of documents properly done, you could run into problems once you arrive in the country.
Don’t worry! In this post, we’ll go over the basics of the steps you should take for authentication of documents along with how we can help make this process quick, easy, and stress-free!
Is Your Teaching Certificate Valid?
Recently the Authentication of Documents Office implemented new rules for authenticating teaching documents. This is to ensure that those with teaching certificates are in fact qualified to teach overseas. Before you can go ahead with authentication of documents, you must ensure that your TESL, TESOL, or TEFL certificate is from an educational institution with membership with an accredited organization like TEL Canada, Languages Canada, and TESL Ontario.
Does Your Certificate Qualify for Authentication of documents process?
Is your teaching certificate from an accredited Canadian College or University or did you receive it from a private institution? This distinction will affect whether or not you will need notarization services. Typically, if a private educational institution issued your certification document, it will need to be notarized.
This requirement changes depending on the school that you received your certification from so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to review the authentication of documents requirements with us. Keep in mind that depending on when you’re reading this, the requirements might have changed, so head on over to our website to know where you stand or simply email us.
Moving on to Legalization of Documents
After you’ve determined if your need the authentication of documents and you’ve received their approval, you can then move onto the second stage of the process, legalization of documents. You can bring your documents to the embassy of the country that you will be traveling to, and they will perform this step. Keep in mind that “Legalization” is the term we use to describe this process in Canada, but in other countries, they might refer to this stage as “Apostille,” or “Attestation.”
You can check on the specific embassy’s website to see their current rules and guidelines for their legalization, but unfortunately, sometimes their information is out of date because the rules change so frequently. Speed is your primary concern here so you can get the paperwork taken care of and begin booking your travel plans. If you want to take the confusion out of this entire process, we highly recommend you come to us.
We’re Here to Help
At our offices, we specialize in authentication of documents and subsequent legalization for a variety of circumstances for countries across the world. Wherever you plan to travel and teach, we can help you out. Simply bring or mail in your documents to us, and we’ll gladly look them over and provide our expert opinion so you don’t make any mistakes along the way that could slow down your plans.
We specialize in processing Canadian degrees and TESL, TEFL, and TESOL certifications, and we’ll take care of the authentication and legalization steps for you! We work closely with Global Affairs Canada and the Authentication of Documents Office to ensure we are up to date with the most current rules.
