Academic Recognition within the European Community

Abstract

There are numerous obstacles to student mobility within the Member Countries of the European Community: legal, economic and administrative ones as well as those linked to different languages and higher education systems, institutions and courses in the various Member States. Shortcomings in academic recognition [1] of higher education entrance, intermediate, and final qualifications have been clearly identified as being one of the main barriers against more intense student flows within the Community. This has been repeatedly and clearly expressed by the European institutions, politicians and many educationalists throughout the Community. The Treaties of Rome provide directly only for professional recognition [2], not for academic recognition. In spite of this, Community institutions have concordantly expressed their opinion clearly that academic recognition must be improved in order to secure considerably greater mobility of students and scholars. The calls have become more urgent in recent years. Academic recognition can, of course, be improved enormously within the Twelve. But there is already some recognition through unilateral decisions, bilateral agreements and multilateral conventions. For instance, there are no general obstacles against the recognition of higher education entrance qualifications inside the Community due to a fairly efficient Council of Europe convention. The Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands have a very efficient bilateral agreement on the academic recognition of intermediate and final qualifications and there are examples of unilateral decisions and other bilateral agreements which favour academic recognition and student mobility within the Community. Even if there are no agreements, academic recognition is less often a problem than it is thought to be, thanks to the goodwill of higher education institutions and National Academic Recognition Information Centres within the Community (see below). European Community (EC) students often experience fewer problems than students from other parts of the world as far as academic recognition is concerned. Even long before the foundation of the European Community, there have always been students who studied in other West European countries and elsewhere. Some of these students were promoted by their home country or invited by their host country; others were not. This kind of individual to study abroad will persist in the future, and this is certainly a good thing. But this approach does not favour large numbers of student exchanges within the Community.