To get a job working with children these days it is essential to obtain official and legal clearance from the established authorities. In the light of dreadful abuses, it's not surprising that these checks are in place. So, as a newly-employed teacher in an international school here in the Czech Republic, it was essential to obtain my own specific clearance.
To do the police check round these here parts involves a trip not to the local nick, an obvious port of call you might presume, but to the Post Office. And that's where, as a foreign non-Czeck type, the problems may begin. For its as likely as the daily sunrise that no-one who works at a Czech Post Office speaks a single word of English, so to obtain this clearance therefore requires mastery of this language — easier said than done — or you find a suitable Czechite to weave their lingual magic.
It's then important to ensure everything goes smoothly, so it's a good idea to bring passports and proof of ID and all the rest. Except, of course, this is no guarantee that the information held on those documents actually makes it onto the required forms. Hence the delightful lady at the counter today took my British passport and on reading only the last word on the front cover took me to be an Irishman (United Kingdom & Northern Ireland, you see). So if there are difficulties in processing, I will merely shrug my newly-dubbed and proud Irish shoulders and go get a Guinness, like I do back in Chelmsford, that new town in the Irish Republic.
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