Dear distinguished guests, colleagues, friends

It is indeed an honor and a pleasure to address this distinguished group of professionals covering many areas in – or related to –a topic close to my heart:

mobility.

Mobility is two-faced creature

It is a beautiful concept when done voluntarily. You leave your home turf to enrich your life by meeting new people in new surroundings, experiencing new cultures, all in the concept of lifelong learning building you as a human being. This is an important contribution to brain circulation, cross-cultural understanding, a foundation for mutual respect and peacekeeping.

The dark side of humanity can also initiate mobility. More than 60 million people worldwidehave been forced to flee what should have been their safe haven and cradle of education that is so important to shaping a human being fit for participating in building a live and blooming society. Terror, war, political collapse, oppression, famine- they are all factors that can spur a forced mobility.Because of war and social unrest in areas close to Europe, our political landscape has shifted in sudden and unexpected ways the last two years. This also has a bearing on us as professionals in facilitating mobility.

These two main reasons for mobility gives us different sets of challenges.

For the voluntary mobility, we have ample tools at our disposal to help out with recognition and assessment of competence. The common foundation are the UNESCO Regional Conventions and a number of transparency tools. The latest development here is – as we heard from our colleague Lene Oftedal earlier in this conference - that UNESCO will commence drafting a Global Convention this year, giving us an overarching mobility tool.

The mobility numbers related to this kind of mobility is reasonably predictable and our services have been dimensioned accordingly.

I will highlight one section of the Lisbon Recognition Convention. Section 7 of the convention is my favorite: it consists of one article consisting of one single sentence. It states that the parties to the convention should establish procedures to secure fair recognition of qualifications from refugees, displaced persons and persons in refugee-like situations, even if qualifications cannot be proven by documentary evidence.

Admittedly – in Europe the parties to the convention have responded differently. In my view, heeding section 7 of the Lisbon Recognition Convention is extremely important because early and effective evaluation of refugees’ qualifications and skills, including those without proper documentation, will enable society and individuals to benefit from a rapid and effective integration process. As we know, integration is so important to reduce the risk of creating ghettos that so easily can be the breeding ground for crime and radicalisation.

In Europe we have seen an unprecedented influx of migrants straining our recognition systems beyond their capacities. In our struggle to handle the situation, we have explored two main avenues. One has been to advocate more of the same, but as far as I know, we do not have the possibility to increase our capacities at the pace needed. Another way of thinking has been: what cost-efficient measures can we implement in addition to the regular recognition schemes that will really make a difference? We have seen several good initiatives of which I will highlight two because they are indeed new to the recognition community.

One is an initiative from the UK NARIC and the Norwegian ENIC-NARIC: The European Qualification Passport for Refugees.

With the legacy of the Nansen passport for refugees from 1922 in mind, it will establish a multi-national framework in Europe for a fast-track procedure to evaluate refugees’ educational and training background, while enhancing their mobility in the European single market. The result of the evaluation is an advisory statement, with information about the refugees’ qualifications. The statement will enable relevant authorities in any European country to organize further work and education. The European Recognition Passport for Refugees is valid for a limited period (three years), and may enable the refugees to use it in more than one country.

The end users of the EQPR would primarily be employers, integration authorities and the Higher Education Institutions.

The EQPR could be extended to other levels of education using the same methodology.

Would it work? We have had a pilot going in Norway trying this out at national level. The evaluation report is not public yet, but being so far from home, I will let you in on a secret. The focus groups - employers, integration authorities and the Higher Education Institutions – see this as a positive and valuable tool. Yes, it works!

The current refugee situation is not a crisis that will disappear. We are facing a new reality, which will leave a lasting legacy on Europe. This calls for a long-term and coordinated multinational approach to screening, evaluation and recognition of refugees’ qualifications. The European Qualifications Passport for Refugees may prove to be a very important step for refugees, our universities, the labour market and the society as a whole.

The second initiative is also challenging to the recognition establishment – The Kiron Open Higher Education - An educational eco-system for already1,200 displaced people by combiningonline and offline elements.

This will be further explained by my co-speaker Willi Weissflog.

Before I give him the floor, I will just conclude my thoughts with the one element that is common to all migrants whatever their reason to be on the move.They all need to present their academic credentials, their European Qualification Passport for Refugees, whatever documentary evidence they may have of education and work experience, to whoever who needs to see it whether it is for employment purposes, further studies, integration services etc. etc. The end user will want to see reliable, untampered information. This brings us to why we came to the beautiful city of Cape Town in the first place: The Groningen Declaration.

The Groningen Declaration is very clearly placed as a conceptual framework that is- and will be of tremendous value for migrants, the recognition community and the other end users of the pertinent information. We must keep up the good work of the Groningen Declaration, we must support the work in any way we can to accelerate the dissemination and use of this concept. It will need a technological base fit for purpose – I am certain the techno-savvy people will find a solution.

We all need the Groningen Declaration!

With that I hand the floor over to Willi.

KIRON

  • Unexpected migration calls for new tools, we investigate two:
  • The European Qualification Passport for Refugees
  • The Kiron Open Higher Education
  • We see the Groningen Declaration as a most valuable conceptual framework that will facilitate mobility of all kinds
  • The UNESCO Regional Conventions and the future Global Convention is- and will be the legal foundation for recognition. There are no signs that the convention will be of less importance in the future, rather the contrary.