A survey by FGV’s Department of Public Policy Analysis (DAPP) points out the advances and challenges — which still persist — in re-validating and recognizing foreign diplomas, a crucial tool to attract and retain skilled labor in the country. According to the study, the launch of the Bori Carolina platform, from the Ministry of Education (MEC) and still under deployment, along with some federal government regulations, resulted in advances in the field by reducing the paperwork required by Brazilian universities, but there are still bottlenecks to be fixed by the public administration.

The excessive autonomy conferred to re-validating educational institutions resulted in a sluggish re-validation and recognition process and dispersed access to information by the applicants, ultimately spawning legal uncertainty as to the validity of diplomas, with potential losses to society, the State, science, and the higher education institutions themselves. In recent years, this scenario led many immigrants to choose high school level jobs or to enroll in higher education or technical courses to obtain a diploma that enabled them to work.

The new rules demand a standardization of processes and documents required by the re-validating universities. The documentation submitted by foreigners no longer needs to be translated if it is in one of the so-called common languages (English, French, or Spanish). In addition, institutions have been given a deadline to complete the processes: 60 days for undergraduate degrees and 90 days for Master’s and PhD degrees. 

The new rules also determine that universities can apply exams in case of doubts as to the equivalence of disciplines or to replace the document analysis. Exams for foreigners who do not have all of the documents required are applied in Portuguese, which is an issue for some immigrants, including refugees. In addition, the platform allowed foreign diploma holders to register, select a university, submit the documentation, and make the re-validation request online. However, since platform registration is not required for re-validating universities, acceptance has been slow. There are currently 61 universities, concentrated mostly in the South and Southeast regions of the country.

In this sense, the study points out that the regulation of the Migration Law is an important opportunity to review procedures that affect immigrants in the process of recognizing their academic training. Improving these processes can help both immigrants and Brazilians who studied abroad.

Go to the website to learn more about the study.