Every graduate who graduated from a foreign higher education institution and aspired to work in Ukraine in the civil service or in the field of education had to go through a rather complicated and lengthy procedure for confirming a foreign diploma.

The Ministry of Education and Science approves all decisions regarding the compliance of foreign educational and qualification levels with Ukrainian education standards (including scientific and scholarly titles). In turn, the "Information and Image Center" under the Ministry of Education deals with establishing the authenticity of documents and examining the conformity of qualifications of foreign diplomas with Ukrainian.

Despite all the complexity of proving the compliance of a foreign diploma with Ukrainian standards, this procedure is quite expensive. According to graduates who went through all stages of this procedure, it cost them more than one thousand hryvnias, and the process itself took about six months.

According to this situation, the Ministry of Education promises to change this process. The first step that has already been taken at the "Information and Image Center" is to reduce the price of services to 51 hryvnias.

Also, the nostrification period, which previously could last for years, has decreased, now the average document review rate is two months. It should be noted that the speed of processing directly depends on the complexity of each case, but employees try not to go beyond the four-month norm specified by the Lisbon Convention on the Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications.

The last "simplifying" changes were introduced at the beginning of July in the new version of the law "On Higher Education". The law states that the final decision on the recognition and establishment of equivalence of bachelor's, master's, doctor of philosophy, doctor of science and academic titles of associate professor obtained in foreign universities will be made not by the Ministry of Education, but by a Ukrainian higher educational institution.

According to the Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, Serhii Kvit, the determination of diplomas of one hundred best universities in the world will be done automatically, in accordance with the authoritative world ratings (in turn, the Ukrainian authoritative rating is - "Top-200 Ukraine").

"Simplification of the nostrification procedure is an important signal for Ukrainians who, having received a valuable education abroad at leading universities, are ready to return to Ukraine and work for the country. They should see a green light in front of them, not a stop light," said Vice-Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University Taras Dobko.

According to the material: DW