Making Integration Work
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Making Integration Work ASSESSMENT AND RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN QUALIFICATIONS Making Integration Work Making Integration Work ASSESS M ENT ENT A ND RECOGN I T I ON OF ON F O R E I GN QU GN A L I F I C A T I ONS Making Integration Work ASSESSMENT AND RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN QUALIFICATIONS This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of OECD member countries. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. Please cite this publication as: OECD (2017), Making Integration Work: Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Qualifications, OECD Publishing, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264278271-en ISBN 978-92-64-27826-4 (print) ISBN 978-92-64-27827-1 (PDF) The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law. Photo credits: Cover Cover © http://www.tagxedo.com; © Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com Corrigenda to OECD publications may be found on line at: www.oecd.org/about/publishing/corrigenda.htm. © OECD 2017 You can copy, download or print OECD content for your own use, and you can include excerpts from OECD publications, databases and multimedia products in your own documents, presentations, blogs, websites and teaching materials, provided that suitable acknowledgement of OECD as source and copyright owner is given. All requests for public or commercial use and translation rights should be submitted to [email protected]. Requests for permission to photocopy portions of this material for public or commercial use shall be addressed directly to the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) at [email protected] or the Centre français d’exploitation du droit de copie (CFC) at [email protected]. FOREWORD – 3 Foreword This booklet is the second of a new series of OECD publications entitled “Making Integration Work”. The series summarises the main lessons from the OECD’s work on integration policies. The objective is to summarise in a non-technical way the main challenges and good policy practices to support the lasting integration of immigrants and their children in the host countries. After a first booklet on the integration of refugees and others in need of international protection, this second booklet takes stock of the experiences of OECD countries in the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications. It summarises this along ten main policy lessons with supporting examples of good practice. It also provides a comprehensive comparison of the policy frameworks that govern policy strategies for the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications in OECD countries. Information about the different policy frameworks was gathered through a questionnaire sent to all the countries. Further booklets will cover the integration of young people with a migrant background, the integration of family migrants and language training for adult migrants. MAKING INTEGRATION WORK: ASSESSMENT AND RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN QUALIFICATIONS © OECD 2017 4 –ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Acknowledgements This booklet was written by Karolin Krause (Consultant to the OECD) and Anne-Sophie Schmidt from the OECD’s International Migration Division together with Thomas Liebig (OECD). It benefitted from comments from Jean-Christophe Dumont (OECD), Mark Pearson (OECD), Stefano Scarpetta (OECD) and Dirk van Damme (OECD). The OECD developed this booklet with support from Germany (the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth), Norway (the Ministry of Children and Equality), Sweden (the Ministry of Employment) and the King Baudouin Foundation in Belgium. This work would not have been possible without the support of the members of the OECD’s Working Party on Migration and the national authorities in charge of recognition of foreign qualifications and integration policy, who willingly shared their knowledge of national policy frameworks and programmes. MAKING INTEGRATION WORK: ASSESSMENT AND RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN QUALIFICATIONS © OECD 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS – 5 Table of contents Introduction .............................................................................................................. 6 Lesson 1. Establish a right to the assessment of foreign qualifications .................. 12 Lesson 2. Make sure that recognition procedures are quick and provide opportunities to assess foreign qualifications prior to arrival ................................ 19 Lesson 3. Facilitate information and application through one-stop-shops for the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications ................................. 27 Lesson 4. Strengthen systems for the Recognition of Prior Learning and ensure effective access for immigrants ............................................................................... 37 Lesson 5. Link partial recognition to bridging courses ............................................ 50 Lesson 6. Ensure that regulatory bodies treat immigrants fairly ............................ 57 Lesson 7. Engage employers and other relevant non-governmental stakeholders ............................................................................................................ 64 Lesson 8. Establish partnerships and networks for the transnational exchange of expertise and good practice in the area of recognition ...................................... 71 Lesson 9. Expand bilateral and multilateral agreements on the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications ................................................................ 73 Lesson 10. Make sure that costs do not represent a barrier .................................. 77 Notes ....................................................................................................................... 83 Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 86 Further reading ....................................................................................................... 88 Annex A. .................................................................................................................. 9 MAKING INTEGRATION WORK: ASSESSMENT AND RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN QUALIFICATIONS © OECD 2017 6 – INTRODUCTION Introduction Why is the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications an important issue? OECD-wide, almost two out of three immigrants have obtained their qualifications abroad. At the same time, a substantial body of research shows that immigrants with foreign qualifications face significant barriers to unfolding their skills potential. Highly educated immigrants with foreign qualifications have lower returns to their education in terms of employment prospects and wages than the native-born with domestic qualifications, regardless of age, gender and field of study. On OECD average, 27% of highly educated immigrants are not in employment and a further 26% are formally overqualified for their job, meaning that they work in jobs that require a lower level of formal education than what they were educated for.1 Among highly educated immigrants with domestic qualifications, only 20% are not in employment and 18% are overqualified for their job (see Figure 1). Part of the observed lower return to foreign qualifications is due to differences in the performance of education systems. For example, data from the OECD Survey on Adult Skills (PIAAC) shows that there are large cross-country differences in skills at given education levels (OECD, 2016b). Likewise, the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has shown that the outcomes of students at age 15 vary across countries. This and other evidence suggests that the quality of education systems differs widely, especially between high- and low-income countries. However, recent OECD work has shown that a discount is observed even after accounting for such differences (OECD/EU, 2014). MAKING INTEGRATION WORK: ASSESSMENT AND RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN QUALIFICATIONS © OECD 2017 INTRODUCTION – 7 Figure 1. Highly educated foreign-born either overqualified or not in employment, by country of qualification, 15-64 years old, 2013-15 Percentages (excluding people in education) Not in employment Overqualified 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ NQFQ LUX CHE POL SLK CZE HUN GBR SLV BEL LVAOECD(25)NLD USA DEU SWE DNK ISL AUT IRL EU(28) FIN EST FRA PRT ESP ITA GRC Note: FQ stands for foreign qualification; NQ for native (host-country) qualification; data for Germany is based on 2012-2013. Overqualified are persons who are tertiary-educated (levels 5 and 6 in the International Standard Classification of Education) but work in low- or medium-skilled jobs (levels 4-9 in the International Standard Classification of Occupations); see OECD/EU (2015). Source: European Union Labour Force Surveys (Eurostat); US Current Population Surveys, March supplement. An important distinction must be made between regulated and non-regulated occupations. In regulated professions and trades, where a specific registration,