‘Simplify diploma recognition’, report recommends

Higher education institutions’ processes for checking the qualifications of students from other European countries are overly complex and diverse, a study has found.

The Focus on Automatic Institutional Recognition study, which reported its results on 4 July, looked at the qualification checking processes of 22 higher education institutions in six European countries. It found “large variation” between countries, and even within individual institutions.

In the Netherlands and Italy it is solely higher education institutions themselves that makes decisions regarding the admission of European students. By contrast, regional governments are involved in Spain and Croatia, while in Germany sometimes third parties have a say. This variation and complexity can make the systems difficult to understand, the study found.