Abstract
AbstractInternational higher education collaboration and recognition of foreign qualifications have been inseparable from the very start. The institutionalization of higher education collaboration after the Second World War, when international organizations such as IAU were founded, also marked the start of the institutionalization of recognition of foreign qualifications. This piece celebrates seventy years of IAU by reflecting on the past, present and future of academic recognition of foreign qualifications, as one of the elements of internationalization that facilitate and validate international student mobility. It will do so by providing snapshots from some milestones in the field. The perspective taken is based on the experiences of Nuffic, which was founded only two years after IAU, in the same spirit of international cooperation in education. Nuffic was tasked with the recognition of foreign qualifications in 1958.
Highlights
International higher education collaboration and recognition of foreign qualifications have been inseparable from the very start
How did the field develop in those early decades? From the end of the Second World War to the mid-1970s, student mobility between countries was limited to those that qualified for one of the few scholarships available or were able to finance the experience themselves
The foreign degree sufficed if assessed at a comparable level with comparable functions, even though it may differ in detail
Summary
International higher education collaboration and recognition of foreign qualifications have been inseparable from the very start. The institutionalization of higher education collaboration after the Second World War, when international organizations such as IAU were founded, marked the start of the institutionalization of recognition of foreign qualifications. This piece celebrates seventy years of IAU by reflecting on the past, present and future of academic recognition of foreign qualifications, as one of the elements of internationalization that facilitate and validate international student mobility. When internationalization really took off in the 1990s, a new approach gained ground that is still used today: “acceptance” Under this precept, a foreign qualification deemed slightly inferior to the nearest comparable degree in the receiving country, would be accepted at that level. Evaluation time dropped from three days to 30 min on average – a high(er) level of efficiency aided by modern communication and digitalization, and new developments that refined modern recognition practices in the 1980s and 1990s
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