Recognition of non-German academic qualifications

A friend of mine from the Czech Republic has applied for work with a German Employment agency.
she has Abitur-equivalent qualifications from the Czech Republic but has to prove they are recognised here. any ideas how could she go about this?

Try the EU as a starting point.

First thing that comes to my mind is giving a call to the local embassy/consulate. They should know for sure what are the procedures.

She needs to go to the Zeugnisanerkennungs stelle.

Address: Pündterplatz 5, 80803 München

Tel: 089- 383849-0 9:00 till 10:30 Monday to Friday
14:00 to 15:30 Monday to Thursday

Opening hours 10:00 till 12:00 Monday to Friday.

cheers everyone!
thanks loads for all the info & advice, will pass it on to my chum

For the benefit of later readers of this topic, here's some info for other cities in Germany:

Frankfurt:
Industrie- und Handelskammer Frankfurt am Main
Börsenplatz 4, 60313 Frankfurt
Contact person: Roswitha Sopper-Bannert
Tel.: 069 2197 1239
Website: Anerkennung von Zeugnissen

Berlin:
Zeugnisanerkennungsstelle der Senatsverwaltung
Beuthstraße 6 - 8, 10117 Berlin - Mitte
Tel.: 030 9026 5228
Website: Zeugnisanerkennung

although im not american, i was educated there: a B.A. and a M.A., both are regarded higher than any of the German certificates.

oh, let's not have this discussion again!

just letting you know, that your degrees here in germany will not be challenged. most people from all over the EU, Australia, Asia, Canada and the USA have had no problem getting a job or taking up in shcool "where they left off"...again, it depends on many things, like if you want to study German as a foreign language...only an entry level exam will place you, not necassarily what Harvard or Cambridge states how good of a German speaker you are.

am sad to say that the Munich guys messed up my friend's Qualification translation even getting her nationality wrong! she'd prefer to get her Qualification translated into English and a website called NARIC was recommended to us. unfortunately they don't do Czech to English translations. can anyone recommend any other reputable English outlet we can use?
thanks, J.

How did they manage that? Did they write she was from Chechnya or something?

Slovakian!

Groan... talk about ignorant!

Ok, wait so if I have a BA from the US, it counts as higher than a German degree? How does that work? I'm really curious because when I talked a friend of mine he acted like my BA was nothing compared to getting a German degree. My impression was that since we work on a different system our BA is less than their degrees because they're in school longer.

Can someone help to clear my confusion?

PS- does anyone know if you can do anything in Germany with a BA in Sociology and a minor in history?

Thanks

Don't know about how are the chances of getting a job, but a BA, a BSc or any other three or four year Bachelor degree is not equivalent to a Diplom. Back to the job opportunities you should be able to get a job since there are many germans who also posses a Bachelor and have jobs. The difference will be in your pay.

Though a degree in sociology is unfortunately not highly regarded by most German employers...

There are several sub-issues here.

How a qualification from a different country is regarded is not black and white; it depends on who you're talking to - as the many discussions have shown.

But for the most part, a foreign qualification will be accepted (i.e. believed that you have it) by most prospective employers.

However, the initial post was related to official recognition, which is sometimes required, not normally by employers, but sometimes for an academic application (likeadmission to niversity) etc. Here the situation is:

Abitur can be approved officially if your school leaving qualifications are deemed to be equivalent. I did this years ago and the office was somewhere along the Isar, I think on Widenmayerstr. Allershausen mentioned Pündtnerplatz, so it may well have changed to there. Theyhad a large book which had copied examples of what each country's school leaving certs looked like. It didn't involve translation; they checked tht my certs looked the same as te ones in their book, then a few weeks later I got a letter with a big stamp telling me I had Abitur.

As far as university qualifications are concerned, it is much more difficult and I'm not sure if it has ever been solved if you really do need official recognition (important in the case of for example getting some courses credited to a course of study being don here.) The problem is that even within each country, standards, certificates etc vary greatly, there being no nationally recognised standard in most countries (unlike school leaving certs, which tend to be the same in every city of one country).

For official (academic) recognition of qualifications there's is no official rule (as far as I know). In my case when I applied to a certain graduate program at TU there were very specific conditions that your previous qualifications should meet. Besides that there was a test to take in order to be admitted and also you had to take TOEFL in case your native language was not english. Many of the universities also rely on standard tests that measure a candidate's qualifications, for example GRE. A good GRE with a good TOEFL will get you far away in getting accepted in an international program, of which there are plenty nowadays in german universities.
If you want to enter university from scratch, to get a Diplom, then your qualifications will be evaluated by the university and you may be require to do one year of studentkolleg (or something like that) which intends to level your knowledge with that of other students who posses an Abitur.l

mmm so you are saying that I should enter the German university from the first level? I just finished five years of college in the states, it is less than appealing to start over again. Is a Masters equal to a Diplom?

No, no, no starting all over again. You have a bachelor already, you could get a job, it may be difficult and you won't get paid as much. If you want to improve your qualification you could enroll in a masters program, an international one would be in english, so no language problem there. Then with a master you would have the same treatment as a student with a diplom. For example, I got a BSc many moons ago, I worked back home for several years, then I came over here and did an MSc program and then I started job hunting, I got me job, but I was hired as if I was "almost" a recent graduate. I earn a bit more than a recent graduate, but not as much as if I had all the years of experience that I have and a Diplom. So more or less you get the point, I gues. If not just ask again and I'll try to make it clearer.

Hi, I have loads of english certificates from when I did my mechanical apprentiship. I have NVQ and City and Guilds certs. Does anyone know if I can them translated into the german equivalent so i can get a better job.

Topics merged by admin

This will probably get merged anyway but Recognition of non-German academic qualifications.

just as the title, I needed some information about the above mention subject because some said no, some said company will ask for a recognition letter or get legalised by the embassy... please let me know
Topics merged by admin

The search function is your friend: Recognition of non-German academic qualifications.

I'm sure many of people in this forum have studied in Universities outside of Germany. I was wondering if anyone has made the effort of getting their degrees acknowledged or "Anerkannt" in Germany.
I check on the website ANABIN. And low and behold its accepted.

But now my problem is how do I get a letter from the state(with a pretty stamp) making it all official???
I'm using the help of the "Internationaler Bund e.V." but is this correct???

I have a Bachelor of Commerce with specialization in Informatics.

Topics merged by admin

Not much point IMO.

If you're looking for a job, your potential employer just wants to see that your degree is accepted in the country where you studied, ie that it comes from a proper university. In any jobs that have very particular requirements (medicine, teaching etc) degree accreditation won't help anyway.

ok - just because I am from Africa and studied at an African University (which happens to be the biggest distant education university in the world where famous people like Nelson Mandela also studied!) does not mean my degree is not valid - it is recognized and accepted in the States and Dubai etc - but how does one get the GERMAN "paperwork" done. Germans Love their technical terms and paperwork "Deutsche Ordnung!"

I guess your degree is from UNISA. Your problem is not getting a piece a paper from German authorities. Your problem is more likely to be that HR people here are not familiar with the content of your UNISA curriculum, whereas they would be with the BWL curriculum at a German university, and those of universities in some neighboring countries such as Austria, and will tend to discount your degree as a result.

yes, studied at UNISA. So far other countries have not even bothered but in germany it is all so different - everything has to be "officially approved and translated" etc. nightmare. I also realised that my degree wiht UNISA has more subjects than the equivalent german degree.

back in south africa a diploma is a certificate course...

Who told you that you had to get your degree "anerkannt"? You are not in a licensed profession, right?

When I had my degrees recognized (for the purpose of beginning studies in Bavaria), I visited: Zeugnisanerkennungsstelle für den Freistaat Bayern.

I brought in all of my degrees (plus quite a bit of other paperwork - transcripts, etc.), filled out a few forms, received a letter 5 weeks later, and was done.

I requested that they include my grade point average as well (they converted the grade point average from my US university to an equivalent German grade point average). Letters for students wishing to study at a Bavarian university will typically not state the GPA; it is usually only included for students wishing to study at a FH, so it was important to specifically request this addition.

That all being said: I went in there and told them that I was planning on studying at a university. There may be a different process if you want the degrees to be recognized for the purpose of working.

I not applying for a licence but it is "Professional" when one wants to apply for a job at a German company to have a translation and Anerkennung of your degree so that they now went to a "proper university" and have an international degree

I actually want the anerkennung it for both - Working and to further studies in Germany.
I am completing all the German Language Level Certificates - so far only at B1 Level.

Thank you all for your input.

Zeugnisanerkennungsstelle Brandenburg ...