Procedure
of evaluation of final foreign first and second cycle qualification for the
acquisition of a corresponding final Italian qualification of first or second
cycle respectively. This procedure has the goal of awarding a final Italian
qualification, namely having legal value in our system.
Historically
this procedure was described using the term “equipollenza”, even if Law 148/2002
does not use this term any longer. In addition, Art. 9 of Law 148/2002 repealed
the previous equivalence procedure: (Art. 9: The second and third commas of Article 170 and Article 332 of the
unified code of the laws governing higher education have been repealed,
referring to Royal Decree n. 1592, of 31 August, 1933).
The
evaluation of a foreign qualification for this purpose may lead to different
results:
a) the award of the corresponding Italian qualification without the request of sitting further exams or presenting final thesis (direct recognition); such a procedure is identified with the term “direct recognition” or “direct nostrification” (these cases are very rare);
b) the request to sit further exams/obtain further credits and /or present final thesis in order to fill the gaps of the part of the curriculum not covered by the foreign qualification, in order to award the corresponding Italian qualification; this procedure is identified with the term “course abbreviation”.
In order to satisfy a request for the award of the corresponding Italian qualification, the foreign qualification must respect all the following characteristics:
- be an official first or second cycle qualification respectively of relevant
foreign higher education system, awarded by an official institution of the foreign higher education system;
- allow entry to comparable second or third cycle programmes in the relevant foreign
higher education system;
- present corresponding elements of nature and academic discipline as the Italian
qualification required for entry (number of credits, duration, the academic
nature and/or research elements, etc.);
- an Italian qualification must exist which is comparable to the foreign
qualification, both in type and in academic subject.
These requirements hold for all students with foreign qualifications, independently of their nationality, both for qualifications awarded in European Union (EU) countries and in those non-EU.
Information on enrollment in courses and on the documents to be presented is directly supplied by Italian higher education institutions.