A promise of fast and fair evaluation of credentials

Automatic recognition of qualifications is one of the key ambitions of the new European Education Area, as recently put forward in the new European Council Recommendation. It holds the promise of fast and fair recognition decisions, drastically benefiting student mobility by 2025.

However, there is still considerable confusion about what the concept means, which is also stressed in the Bologna Process Implementation Report 2018. It is my contention that a better understanding of the Lisbon Recognition Convention could lead to a better understanding of automatic recognition and that this is necessary to design realistic strategies and expectations of what can be achieved.

The right to be considered for access

Automatic recognition has been a Bologna goal from the very beginning. However, the concept gained new momentum in the Yerevan Communiqué in 2015 with the ambition to make automatic recognition a reality by 2020. A pathfinder group was established that formulated a clear definition of automatic recognition.

This can be found in the European Council Recommendation from November 2018: “Automatic recognition of a degree leads to the automatic right of an applicant holding a qualification of a certain level to be considered for entry to a programme of further study in the next level in any other EHEA-country (access).”

‘Automatic’ versus ‘regular recognition’

How does ‘automatic recognition’ relate to ‘regular recognition’? The two are complementary, as can be seen if we take a closer look.

The international legal framework for the recognition of foreign qualifications in the European area is the Lisbon Recognition Convention (LRC) of 1999. The LRC’s guiding principle is to recognise a qualification unless there is a substantial difference with the national equivalent.

Substantial differences are “differences between the foreign qualification and the national qualification that are so significant that they would most likely prevent the applicant from succeeding in the desired activity such as further study, research activities or employment” (according to the European Recognition Manual for Higher Education Institutions).

When considering substantial differences, it is internationally good practice – derived from the LRC – to look at how the foreign qualification can be placed in the home system and to consider the following five elements of a qualification in light of the purpose recognition is sought for:

• • Level
  
• • Quality (accreditation)
  
• • Workload
  
• • Profile (What is the orientation, ie field of study, and is it research or practical oriented, etc?)
  
• • Learning outcomes (What is a student able to do upon completion of the programme?)

It is important to note, in light of automatic recognition, that the foreign qualification can never have more access rights than the comparable qualification in the home system.

System level recognition

The following shows how the above relates to automatic recognition, since the five elements can be categorised into two groups:

• • System level: The level, quality and workload are elements that can be considered regardless of the content of concern. These three elements can be the same for a bachelor degree in history as for a bachelor degree in physics.
  
  
• • Programme level: Profile and learning outcomes, on the other hand, are programme-specific and cannot be generalised.

Automatic recognition occurs at a system level. In practice that means that the level and quality (and consequently the workload) of a qualification are accepted if certain conditions are met (see below). This also clarifies why the automatic recognition definition stresses that a qualification can be considered for access: programme-level recognition still needs to take place.

However, it is important not to reduce programme-level recognition to admissions only. Naturally admissions is part of the issue, but the admissions procedure may also include additional requirements of an applicant that are not part of the recognition process. For fair recognition, it is important to distinguish the two – programme recognition and admissions – and be transparent about the procedures.

Four models for implementing automatic recognition

There are different ways to implement system-level recognition. The PARADIGMS project has identified four models currently existing in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA):

• • Legal bilateral and multilateral agreements.
  
• • A legally binding unilateral list of countries and qualifications.
  
• • Non-legal bilateral and multilateral agreements.
  
• • ‘De facto’ automatic recognition.

It depends on the country which model works best and different models can be used simultaneously. However, all models have a common denominator in that they all require:

• • The implementation of the three-cycle (undergraduate, graduate and doctoral studies) structure;
  
  
• • An education system referenced to the Qualifications Frameworks in the European Higher Education Area or European Qualifications Framework; and
  
  
• • A quality assurance system based on the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance. It means that qualifications from countries that fulfil these requirements should automatically be recognised on a system level. Those with such qualifications have the automatic right to be considered for access to the next level.

Actual recognition will depend on the evaluation at a programme level. In addition, there’s another caveat: the foreign qualification cannot have more rights than the comparable qualification in the home system. The latter means that if a bachelor degree holder does not have the right of access to a masters in the home system, a comparable foreign bachelor degree holder also doesn’t have access to the masters in that system.

A quick fix?

While automatic recognition is simplifying part of the recognition procedure, its implementation is not simple. It requires knowledge of applying the LRC and each automatic recognition model has different requirements. Moreover, automatic recognition alone will not lead to fast recognition procedures: significant effort should be put into having fast and fair evaluation of recognition of foreign qualifications at a programme level.

However, the extent to which this will succeed is, based on the outcomes of the FAIR project, also largely dependent on the national ‘recognition infrastructures’ and in particular the role divisions therein.

The FAIR project showed these structures are highly diversified in Europe, that they are not always transparent and that there is a lack of familiarity with the LRC within, and little systematic quality assurance of recognition decisions among, higher education institutions, who make the vast majority of the recognition decisions.

At the same time, in many cases automatic recognition is already ‘de facto’ practised by ENIC-NARIC centres (the national academic information centres on recognition in the European area), that is, for countries that fulfil the EHEA requirements for automatic recognition (three cycles, a referenced quality framework, environmental, social and governance).

For the full implementation of automatic recognition within Europe, the main stakeholders involved in recognition at a national level – ENIC-NARIC centres, ministries of education and higher education institutions – should start a discussion about what strategy fits the (further) implementation of automatic recognition best.

The European Council Recommendation on automatic recognition is therefore an important initiative, putting recognition high on the agenda again, as well as a welcome contribution towards the development of good practice of the recognition of foreign qualifications in the European Union and EHEA at large.

Jenneke Lokhoff is senior policy officer at Nuffic, the Dutch ENIC-NARIC. She currently serves on the NARIC Advisory Board. This article is based on the presentation held at the EQAR (European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education) Members’ Dialogue in November 2018 and based on work from the Pathfinder group and various ENIC-NARIC projects.