Promotion and Development
One of our roles at NARIC Ireland, is to work on national and international projects aimed at developing and promoting best practice in the recognition of foreign qualifications.
We also implement a number of international agreements relating to the recognition of foreign qualifcations. Work in this area is ongoing.
Current Projects
NARIC Projects (2018-20)
NARIC Ireland is involved in five projects with consortia of partners from other ENIC-NARIC centres approved by the European Commission through Erasmus+ from June 2018 which are as follows:
AR-Net This project is exploring the concept of Automatic Recognition in the Networks in 2020, working towards making Automatic Recognition a reality by 2020 in line with The Yerevan Communique (2015); A number of position papers are in development and will be circulated on completion. This project is led by Nuffic the Dutch NARIC office. For more Information see here.
e-VALUATE This project is considering processes and procedures for the evaluating of e-learning for academic recognition, reviewing the practical recognition of new forms of learning (mainly MOOCs and SPOCS); UL also contributing to this project. A number of position papers are in development and will be circulated on completion. The University of Limerick is providing technical support on this project. This project is led by Nuffic the Dutch NARIC office. For more information see here.
Q-ENTRY This project aims to establish an International Database on Higher Education Entry Qualifications, creating an online database of upper secondary school qualifications that give access to Higher Education, for at least the 55 ENIC-NARIC countries. Data gathering is currently underway and QQI will submit material for Ireland. When complete NARIC Ireland will disseminate the link to all stakeholders. This project is led the Italian NARIC office CIMEA. For more information see here.
REACT PASSPORT FOR REFUGEES, Refugees and Recognition – Toolkit 2 (REACT) enhancing mobility, employability and access to further studies for refugees, displaced persons and persons in a refugee-like situation, including those lacking official documentation of their qualifications, by developing efficient, fair and transparent recognition procedures in the EHEA; The University of Limerick (and University of Sanctuary) is working with the project contractor Nokut the Norwegian NARIC office.For more information see here.
We are also engaging in a framework development project with our New Zealand colleagues to help us better reference our qualification between the two jurisdictions.
New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and QQI, establishing framework to framework comparison between our NFQ and the NZQA framework to improve the basis on which we understand and recognise each other’s qualifications. The outcome of this project will be a published document. For more information see here.
Recognition Agreements and International Developments
As part of Ireland's policy of increasing citizen mobility, a number of international agreements are in place which support the recognition of qualifications between countries.
For instance, there are a number of bilateral agreements between Ireland and countries such as the UK, Australia and China. Details of these can be found at
QSearch under the Recognition tab.
Also, the National Framework of Qualifications for Ireland is compatible with two international agreements which have been signed by countries throughout Europe and beyond.
The
Bologna Process is an agreement between 47 countries to develop education systems with a greater degree of compatibility.
The
European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF) allows for comparison between qualifications systems in Europe.
