Academics who have graduaded abroad and come back to Germany to find a job might face a little difficulty. Some employers don't accept a simple Master's or Bachelor's certificate and demand an additional document that describes the foreign higher education qualifications and its usage. The process is very bureaucratic and annoying. A call for blockchain-based solutions to prove higher education certificates. 

Comparability of Higher Education Qualifications

Almost ten years ago I graduated from Tartu University in Estonia with a Master's degree. I went back to Germany, found a job and thought my qualification would be accepted as if I graduated from a German university. Although the Bologna Process ensures standards and comparability of higher education throughout the EU member states, in Germany acceptance of foreign higher education qualification is not as self-evident as I expected. I noticed that quite a lot employers demanded an officially issued document called Statement of Comparability For Foreign Higher Education Qualifications. Specialists and Academics who want to work in Germany need this document to get a residence permit. This so called Statement of Comparability is a comparative assessment of a foreign university degree. It faciliates access to the German labour market. Basically it is an official document which translates the foreign higher education certificate and describes its qualifications in German language. But it is not a certificate of recognition which would reveal what the degree's grades would mean relative to the German university grading scale. It rather confirms that you have graduaded with a Bachelor's or Master's degree at a foreign university. In other words, this Statement of Comparabilty is practically useless, because it doesn't give you more information than a common Master's or Bachelor's certificate in English language issued by any university within the EU. In addition, it is quite an effort to get it. 

Unneccesary Bureaucratic Effort

You have to apply for a Statement of Comparability at the Central Office for Foreign Education. The necessary documents you can find here. You need to send certified copies of your university degree. But you need every document printed and you have to send it in old school manner via mail. That alone is annoying. In some cases notarially certified documents (which can be expensive) are needed. In my view this bureaucratic effort and paper war is completely unneccesary. The whole process cost you not only time and effort but also 200 Euro. All this for a document which basically confirms that you hold a foreign university degree. What a waste of time, resources and tax money (because all the people in Central Office for Foreign Education get paid from the state) that could be distributed more intelligently.

Blockchain Technology Helps

I'm sure in a modern digital world acceptance and proof of higher education certificates could be much easier. Probably with a blockchain-based solution bureaucratic monsters like the Statement of Comparability and maybe the whole Central Office for Foreign Education could be history. Ideally, students who graduate in the future get their university degree digitally. They receive a printed certificate, too. But this time it would bear a digital signature, a hash-code which is written permanently and unchangebly in a blockchain. This way higher education certificates would be forgery-proof. They could be certified digitally. And they could be issued in a standardized machine-readable way, e.g. XML, which is compatible to the European system of data exchange for higher education certficates (called EMREX). This would ensure that the information of standardized certificates can be read, compared and accepted easily by other institutions (universities, students, examination boards) throughout the EU. In fact, some projects are already working on digital blockchain-based solutions. One project concerned with digital certificates is conducted by  a think tank called Hochschulform Digitalisierung. In cooperation with the North-Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Education, some universities, Stiftung für Hochschulzulassung (foundation for the allocation of study places) and the state-owned IT-company Bundesdruckerei Group a prototype for digital proof of higher education has qualifications has been developed with the use of blockchain technology. I hope that this prototype can be quickly advanced and put to real use in the universities.