Spain shortens the period of homologation of university degrees for foreigners to six months

The accreditation of university degrees which allows foreigners to practice their profession in Spain will be resolved in a maximum of six months, instead of the more than two years on average it now takes due to the bureaucracy of the process, which has created a “bottleneck” of thousands of backlogs.

The term reduction will be done through the full scan and “substantial” simplification of the administrative procedure, “but by maintaining controls and quality,” Spanish Universities Minister Manuel Castells said on Wednesday at a press conference.

In the presentation of the new decree which will regulate the procedures for homologation, equivalences and validation of university education, Castells underlined the intention to “remedy the human drama “ which represent the current waiting periods and integrate highly qualified professionals into Spanish society and economy.

The minister calculated some 15,000 requests for equivalence and accreditation of foreign graduates still awaiting a response from the Spanish authorities. About 9,000 are resolved each year.

An approval has professional and academic effects; and in equivalences, they are only academic.

From the approval of these regulations, scheduled for the last quarter of 2021, the maximum duration of the process should not exceed six months.

How will the procedure be

Requests can only submit electronically. The interested party can at any time know the state of progress of the procedure and a technical commission, composed of 12 people, will be responsible for the publication of the corresponding report.

This report this will not be necessary in four cases. These are cases of diplomas from countries in the European Higher Education Area. Also when there is an agreement between Spain and another country of mutual and reciprocal recognition of academic levels or an agreement between Spanish quality assurance agencies and those of another country.

Finally, the report will not be necessary when the degrees come from universities and higher education institutions of international renown.

Source: EFE