According to information provided by the Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz der Kultusminister in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland/Zentralstelle für ausländisches Bildungswesen and the German Industrie- und Handelstag in Bonn, there is no specific procedure for recognising distance education courses for vocational training within the EU. The recognition of vocational qualifications which give access to a profession that is regulated individually by a member state of the EU is subject to various specific and general guidelines issued by the European Council. These guidelines do not consider the question whether a distinct professional qualification has been acquired by means of conventional or distance education.
With the recognition of academic diplomas one has to differentiate between academic and vocational education. The recognition of foreign academic certificates in Germany is executed by the university concerned.
The permission to use a foreign academic title is regulated by the ministries for science of the states (Bundesländer).
The basis of legal acknowledgement for the academic recognition of university examinations in countries belonging to the European Union is the convention of the European Council. Moreover, there are some bilateral agreements between France, Italy, Austria, Spain and the Netherlands. At the moment, a table of these agreements on equivalence is out of print but will be reissued in several weeks.
On the basis of the European treaty of 25th of March 1957, the freedom to offer services and to be chartered in any of its member states a regulation for the mutual acknowledgement of vocational qualifications is a prerequisite. As long as such regulations do not exist, acknowledgement is a matter of the employers.
The Council of the EU has passed regulations for some professions - there are sectoral and common regulations available.
There was no consensus about such regulations for the field of engineering, which was the reason for giving up the endeavour to regulate on a sectoral basis.
Equivalence of functions and the trust in the quality of vocational training became the basis for mutual acknowledgement of qualifications. Two general regulations were adopted:
These general regulations for acknowledgement are evidence of the trust in the quality of each members own regulations. Only a certification for the professional qualification is needed - there is no prescribed content for the curriculum (syllabus) or the examination procedures.
Both general regulations offer the possibility for each member state to ask for additional examinations or curricula for adaptation of a maximum length of three years. Applicants may choose the type of additional prerequisites (up to three years course or examinations).
On top of the second general regulation applicants may even be promoted to a higher level acknowledgement under the following circumstances: Migrants who hold a diploma of the lower type (college level or less than three years university level) may be acknowledged and work in another member state in the higher level if they fulfil additional prerequisites like long experience as a professional and/or the mentioned mechanism of additional adaptation courses or examinations respectively.
For the acknowledgement of qualifications according to these regulations the following criteria have to be fulfilled:
If in the target member state the transformation process has not come to a legal result applicants may, according to the procedures of the High Court of Europe claim their right based directly on these regulations.
In Germany e.g. according to the new §7 of the craftsmen-order from 1994 all holders of higher education qualification certificates from another member state of the EU are entitled to the same rights to open a craft shop in their relevant profession as their German counterparts having a German certificate.
According to the decision of the EU Council from July 16th 1985, the EU is working on a documentation of all national certificates in the field of vocational education at large. To come to comparability of such certificates national certification was grouped into five levels of qualification. This was done with the intention to enable mobility within the European Union. From the German point of view this procedure (to identify levels) still has to be worked on because there is an orientation only at the level of schooling.
Accreditation via the nostrification procedure is possible since 1977 with France and Austria on the basis of bilateral agreements.
After the inspection of curricula and examination procedures such nostrification agreements exist for 30 professional qualifications and 293 Austrian ones. The greater the differences in curricula or examination procedures the greater the difficulties in mutual acknowledgement. As an alternative there is an initiative to come to comparability agreements with France without codified procedures.
In the field of crafts and industry there can be noticed initiatives to develop certificates that already state EU wide validity.
According to the two regulations 89/46/EEC and 92/51/EEC, every member has set up a national information agency to give information for migrants and applicants on these topics. The problem with these agencies is that they are not entitled to certify equivalencies but that they only have the task of spreading information about the legal procedures (addresses are given in the following chapters on each country).
If an applicant is rejected for a regulated profession in spite of the fact that he would be entitled to such a profession in another member state he may suit the case in accordance with regulation 89/48/EEC and/or 92/51/EEC at the Court of Justice of E.U.
For all such acknowledgement procedures which are not regulated Europe-wide by the general regulation, the goal is not to come to a decisive regulation but instead to further the transparency of vocational education at large. This is the reason for the development of a personal document which sets the individual qualification - into this document all official and industrial work documents relevant to the professional biography could be incorporated. One step into this direction is the project to issue multilingual certificates - as an attachment there should be a description of the professional profile in three languages at least.
Life-long learning makes it even more difficult to document the real vocational qualification of the workforce. This was the reason for the Commission to present the idea of a personal card of professional vocational competence.