Discovering the Power of Blogging!!!

The power of blogging © Marco Rullkoetter

I started this blog, mainly as a way to keep friends and family up-to-date with what my new life in Prague is like. It also has proved to be quite therapeutic and has helped me clarify my thinking by having to write things down in a form that others can read and understand.

From the outset, I have been very conscious that I am a public figure (albeit a minor one) and that what I post on my blog promptly appears in the public domain. Therefore, I have always tried to be accurate with my facts and distinguish clearly between what is fact, over and against what is my opinion. But I never really expected it to be read much beyond my former parishioners in Oxfordshire, UK, various family members and friends, and now increasingly by members of my Prague congregation. It has also been discovered by a small circle of expats living in various corners of the world.

However, in the last ten days, much to my surprise, I have discovered the power of blogging. Simply by writing about how two TEFL teaching members of my congregation have been forced to leave the country because the Caledonian School failed to obtain work permits and visas from the Czech Foreign Police, within the required time limit of 90 days, I am suddenly in demand! It is not just the power of blogging but also the power of Google! Put ‘Caledonian School, Prague + TEFL’ into the Google search engine and guess what pops up on the second page of results? My blog!

On the afternoon of Friday 15^th May, I received an email from the TEFL Course Coordinator at the Caledonian School, offering me the opportunity to meet with the Executive Director of the School so that we might discuss the current visa situation and what the School are doing to sort out and resolve the recent problems. That’s when I knew this blog had been found!!!

So it was that last Thursday, Nanebevstoupení Páne (Ascension Day for those who can’t read Czech!), I had an hour-long meeting with Monika Kubátová, the Executive Director of the Caledonian School at their headquarters in the suburb of Andel. To her credit, she did not dispute any of the facts contained in my blog posts about what had happened to Karen & Anna. So in turn, I promised her that I would post in my blog, how the Caledonian School understood the situation and what they have been doing since Karen & Anna’s forced departures, to try and put things right for the future.

The following is therefore a summary of the main points that Ms Kubátová made to me.

• Caledonian knew about the official rule that a work permit & visa has to be obtained for a non-EU national within 90 days of that person arriving in the Czech Republic. However in the past, this rule had always been quietly ignored by the Foreign Police with regard to language schools because they understood the difficulty of doing it in 90 days, especially as the Schools don’t want to start the process until TEFL students have successfully completed their one month training course. Ms Kubátová claimed that they had no warning that this rule was suddenly going to be strictly enforced with effect from the beginning of 2009.
• Caledonian are embarrassed & upset about what has happened to Karen, Anna & the others in their group & what is likely to happen to those in the two following groups. The whole business has cost Caledonian money (having to pay air fares), and upset some of the companies who buy their services. Both Karen & Anna were known as good teachers and the students liked them!
• Despite the economic downturn, Caledonian still have plenty of companies & individuals who are buying their services. Therefore they are keen to retain good TEFL teachers.
• The Owner of Caledonian has had a meeting with the Head of the Foreign Police 10-14 days ago & is having a further meeting this coming week which Ms Kubátová is also attending. The Head of the Foreign Police has promised that all non-EU TEFL Teacher applications from Caledonian will in future, be processed within 60 days. In turn, Caledonian have instituted new procedures, getting trainee teachers to complete paperwork whilst they are still undertaking their initial one month course, so that applications can be submitted immediately the course is finished therefore giving 60 days for the visa process.
• Caledonian want both Karen & Anna back as soon as work permits & visas have been obtained & there are jobs waiting for both of them on their return. Ms Kubátová claimed to be in email communication with both Karen & Anna and that by them submitting visa & work permit applications from outside of Schengen, there should now be no problem in getting them approved within 60 days.
• The Czech Tax Department & the Foreign Police do not talk to each other or share information. However, it is a serious offence not to pay tax & therefore Caledonian start deducting tax from salaries of TEFL teachers before they have work permits, to avoid that the teachers or Caledonian get into trouble with the tax department.

These are the facts as the Caledonian School understands them. What now follows is my opinion.

• I do still believe that the Language Schools were warned by the Foreign Police at the beginning of 2008, that the official rules were going to be enforced in future & they were given 12 months to get their act sorted out. There are references to this in the forum of the expats.cz website. Caledonian, (and also the James Cook Language School), just didn’t believe that the Foreign Police would do it. I also believe that leaving it 7 weeks between completing the course & applications being submitted just made the situation worse.
• I also believe that because of what has happened to Karen, Anna & their colleagues, Caledonian have been forced to change their procedures. The ‘proof of the pudding will be in the eating’ as the saying goes, but I do think that Caledonian have now got an agreed framework for visas with the Foreign Police that should work in the future.
• Whilst I do think Caledonian are now trying to make amends for their past mistakes, I do note (and pointed out to Ms Kubátová) that both Karen and Anna have suffered financially as a result of all of this & whilst it is great that there will be jobs waiting for both of them on their return, they still have to support themselves over the intervening 60+ days since they were forced to leave the Czech Republic. Also, they both lost the flats that they had here in Prague. I did get an acknowledgement from Ms Kubátová regarding this point.

Not only have I had the hierarchy of the Caledonian School after me, I have also been contacted by an American student who has signed up with Caledonian for a TEFL teaching course in August this year and by a College Career Counsellor from an American University. You can see their respective comments on my previous posts. I’ve written back by email, offering what information and help I can to them both.

So it is that, much to my genuine surprise, what was originally planned as a newsy update for friends, relatives and former parishioners, has also created a few ripples both here in Prague and the USA. I’ve discovered the power of blogging!!!!