From work to study

• Good preparation is half the battle. If you’re hoping to have your skills from your professional life or other areas outside higher education recognised on your studies, you should do some background research. First of all, check to what extent your competences can be recognised as prior learning – as a rule, this should be an option at every university. The possibility of having competences acquired outside higher education recognised is based on legal regulations in the individual federal states. Possible recognition of prior learning depends on whether the competences you already have match your future study programme and its contents. However, the process doesn’t work the same way everywhere.
• Next, find out which recognition procedures are offered by the university of your choice: a distinction is made between procedures for the individual recognition of prior learning and procedures for lump-sum recognition of prior learning. Procedures for individual recognition of prior learning must be offered everywhere, in accordance with the requirements of the particular state higher education act. You can find out at your future university or through information portals (e.g. www.dabekom.de see below, in German only) whether lump-sum recognition of prior learning is also offered. Furthermore, you will receive specific information from your university for your application for recognition of prior learning. Be sure to take up the offer of the university’s student advisory service.
  You can also find useful tips in the following resources:
• www.hochschulkompass.de/en: The Higher Education Compass provides information on study programmes at German universities. You also have the option of using a search engine on the site to look for different programmes in Germany.
• www.dabekom.de: In addition to a wealth of information around the topic of recognition of prior learning, the database on recognition of vocational competences provides information on offers for individual and lump-sum recognition of vocationally acquired competences on study programmes.

• The next step is to submit your application. First of all, check what your university says on the subject. You can also find out more about this on your university’s website or from the relevant contact person (e.g. RPL officer). Which forms do you have to fill in and which documents do you have to submit? Generally speaking, your application will either be assessed individually, or lump-sum processing will be used. Depending on the competences you already have, both procedures can also be combined.
• Important: It is your task to prove that the competences you want to have recognised really correspond to those of the study programme. This “burden of proof” lies with you. You should therefore be able to provide good evidence of the competences, for example by comparing the descriptions of your vocational training (e.g. training framework plan, training regulations or framework curriculum) with the module descriptions of your study programme. As the structure of education systems in different countries can vary greatly, comparing your foreign professional qualification with the content of your study programme in Germany may pose challenges. It is likely that you will need to submit translations of your certificates and other relevant documents.
• During the application phase, the university may approach you and ask for more detailed information – you need to do your best to cooperate (see obligation of cooperation).

• Almost there! Are the learning outcomes from your training (or similar) equivalent to those of the study programme? This will become clear during the content-related assessment. In the final step, your application is assessed and a decision is made about which or how many of your competences will be recognised. Please be patient – it can take up to three months from the submission of the documents to the result of the assessment.
• If the documents submitted are not sufficient for the recognition assessment, you may have to have an interview with a person responsible for the subject or explain your competences in writing (see competence assessment procedure). When the application has been assessed formally and the competences’ equivalence been examined, you will receive a letter with the result of your application for RPL.
• Your application may be rejected if the assessment proves that there is no equivalence between the qualification you want to have recognised as prior learning and the study module that is to be replaced.
• If you do not agree with the result of the application assessment, e.g. because your application was rejected, as a rule, you have the option of lodging an objection within one month. (see options for objecting).
• The application assessment process works similarly at all universities, but there may be differences in the process, for example with regard to deadlines.
• The fact that your competences acquired outside higher education have been recognised for your study programme will usually be noted in your transcript of records.

Step by step to achieving recognition of your competences acquired outside higher education – summarised here in our compact checklist.