The Recognition of Qualification

Legal Basis and Practical Implementation

The importance of academic recognition for the creation of the European Higher Education Area is evident. Implementing this is a challenging and multi-faceted process, which encompasses studying and studies, as well as university teaching and research, so far as questions of access and admission, relocation and performance evaluation, including the graduation of students, are raised. This article outlines the developments on a European level and analyses the legal framework of recognition before finally focussing on the most important challenges. These principally arise at an implementation level, where a European framework which promotes recognition entails a concrete implementation effort on the part of the national education system.

Over the course of the article the development towards a “bureaucratisation” of the process of recognition will be considered, though obviously not in the infamous sense of this word. However recognition must become more “bureaucratic” in the sense that Max Weber described: decisions must be made on the basis of the facts and be normative, i.e. unaffected by external factors irrelevant to abstract and general rules. In addition the process of recognition must be completed as quickly and as simply as possible. Only then will fair recognition practice become reality in the European Higher Education Area.