Higher education and recognition of degrees: extension actions from a public and frontier university in Brazil

Abstract

A central issue for professional practice abroad is the recognition of higher education qualifications, a procedure with obstacles that affects people trained in different countries. Faced with this, we have created an extension action (2019-current) to provide guidance on this topic: the Center for Guidance on Revalidation and Recognition of High School and Higher Education Diplomas, a project developed in a Brazilian university. Based on this, we propose to approach the procedure for the recognition of higher education degrees in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, and to describe and to analyze the experiences of the Guidance Center. To achieve this objective, we worked with qualitative research techniques which allowed to observe that there is a great demand to recognize higher degrees in Brazil. As conclusions, we highlight the relevance of having a body of professionals trained in the procedure, as well as the need to establish policies that simplify the process.

Keywords:
Higher Education; recognition of higher education qualifications; college extension; UNILA; Brazil