CNRED continues the series of actions dedicated to “automatic recognition” within the European ARAQUA project

The National Center for Recognition and Equivalence of Diplomas organized at the National University of Music Bucharest, between February 29 and March 1, a series of actions within the Road to Automatic Recognition of Higher Education Access Qualifications (ARAQUA) project, no. 101101645, financed by the Erasmus+ program, action 3, project intended for members of the ENIC/NARIC National Recognition Centers network, in which Romania is a partner alongside Latvia, the Kingdom of Denmark, Italy, Malta, Estonia, Slovakia, Armenia and Ireland.

On February 29, 2024, the Centers partnering in the project participated in a workshop dedicated to the European concept of “automatic recognition” and the development of appropriate implementation mechanisms, together with other experts from Albania, Andorra, France, Germany, Monaco, Spain, Iceland, Finland, Holland, Slovakia, following the recommendations formulated by the European Commission and the perspectives of the beneficiaries, such as the Romanian Ministry of Education and higher education institutions.

After the introduction of the purpose and objectives of the ARAQUA project – namely the mapping of the qualifications that allow access to higher education and the development of a set of recommendations for the ENIC-NARIC centers and for the higher education institutions to facilitate the automatic recognition between states of these qualifications -, the partner centers have presented the main conclusions from the comparative report made by the partner countries; the elaborated comparative report looked at the national legislative framework, the mapping of national qualifications that allow access to higher education, as well as ways of recognition and recommendations for the automatic recognition of qualifications that allow access to higher education.

On this occasion, the partners brought to attention examples of good practices implemented at the national level that can be used at the European level, which led to the identification of other concrete mechanisms and tools that can be used in the implementation of the concept of “automatic recognition”.

The workshop also included the presentation of the procedures for recognizing the qualifications that allow access to university studies in Romania, the UK and Armenia, as well as a discussion panel in which representatives of the Ministry of Education from Romania, Estonia, Malta and the Romanian-American University debated the minimum principles and criteria that must be considered in the implementation of automatic recognition, but also the obstacles or limitations that must be considered in the application of this concept.

The ARAQUA project continued on the second day with discussions regarding the activities planned for the next period, among which is the organization of a national workshop with representatives of educational institutions in Romania to present the results of the project and specific recommendations for the implementation of automatic recognition.

Additional information about the ARAQUA project – https://aic.lv/en/par-aic/projects/araqua

Publication date: 04.03.2024