I used to think that education was the right of every child. But since attempting to navigate the choppy and confusing waters of obtaining just the right documentation to satisfy Chile's Ministry of Education requirements, I am no longer so sure.
If you will, back up with me to this entry posted on February 24, 2009. Eight months ago we began the paperchase to ensure that prior to November 29th of this year our children would be "regularized" students within the Chilean educational system. Doing so entailed a trip to Santiago to obtain stamps from Chile's Department of Exterior; mailing the documents to the United States and specifically to the state of issuance for each birth certificate; mailing the documents to the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C.; attempting to straighten out an issue with Pedro's birth certificate since the state of Michigan did not recognize the registrar who signed his original BC (for the record, this is still pending and since Pedro wasn't the one going to school we opted to put his on hold for now); learning that we needed translations from Chile's Department of Exterior in Santiago; obtaining those translations; waiting for the documents to be returned; paying for notarized photocopies of each and every documents; and finally submitting all of the above to the Civil Registries office in Iquique.
And that's just the shortened version.
It took two days to successfully submit the proper documents to the Civil Registries office, which I did last Friday, October 29. The process which is actually taking place is that our children will now be formally enrolled in Chile's national list of students. They will receive a birth certificate printed by the Civil Registries office, and that birth certificate is their ticket to final acceptance by the Ministry of Education.
However, before I could breathe a sigh of relief for having completed this step with a full month to spare ... the clerk announced that their certificates would take two months to be printed. At my look of horror, she said that surely the Ministry of Education would accept an "in-process" receipt in the meantime.
Unfortunately, she was wrong.
To Be Continued ...
If you will, back up with me to this entry posted on February 24, 2009. Eight months ago we began the paperchase to ensure that prior to November 29th of this year our children would be "regularized" students within the Chilean educational system. Doing so entailed a trip to Santiago to obtain stamps from Chile's Department of Exterior; mailing the documents to the United States and specifically to the state of issuance for each birth certificate; mailing the documents to the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C.; attempting to straighten out an issue with Pedro's birth certificate since the state of Michigan did not recognize the registrar who signed his original BC (for the record, this is still pending and since Pedro wasn't the one going to school we opted to put his on hold for now); learning that we needed translations from Chile's Department of Exterior in Santiago; obtaining those translations; waiting for the documents to be returned; paying for notarized photocopies of each and every documents; and finally submitting all of the above to the Civil Registries office in Iquique.
And that's just the shortened version.
It took two days to successfully submit the proper documents to the Civil Registries office, which I did last Friday, October 29. The process which is actually taking place is that our children will now be formally enrolled in Chile's national list of students. They will receive a birth certificate printed by the Civil Registries office, and that birth certificate is their ticket to final acceptance by the Ministry of Education.
However, before I could breathe a sigh of relief for having completed this step with a full month to spare ... the clerk announced that their certificates would take two months to be printed. At my look of horror, she said that surely the Ministry of Education would accept an "in-process" receipt in the meantime.
Unfortunately, she was wrong.
To Be Continued ...
1 comment:
Oh my, it never ends does it? Praying that you will know what to do!
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