Do I need to have my foreign qualifications officially recognised?
Recognition of educational and/or professional qualifications gained in countries other than the Czech Republic is usually only required in the following circumstances:
you wish to enrol on a course of study at a Czech university (including PhD)
or
you wish to practise a profession which is among the regulated professions in the Czech Republic.
To be employed in a non-regulated profession in the Czech Republic, you are not usually required to have your qualifications officially recognised. So most researchers do not need to have their qualifications recognised officially.
How can I get my foreign qualifications officially recognised?
You will need to prepare your documents and present them to the relevant authority - this depends on the type of qualification you need to have recognised. Please see the detailed information below for each type.
You will need an original or certified copy of your qualification certificate and/or transcript, and a document certifying the content and scope of the education obtained, usually with a certified translation into Czech. All signatures and stamps on original documents must be authenticated if there is no bilateral treaty on legal assistance concluded between the Czech Republic and the country concerned (please contact us about this procedure).
Primary, secondary and vocational qualifications
Recognition of primary, secondary and higher vocational education is regulated by Section 108 of Act No. 561/2004 Coll. (the Education Act) and by its Implementing Decree No. 12/2005 Coll.
Education attained abroad can only be recognized if it is complete, i.e. you finished the respective level of education in full (not just part).
Your educational documents are recognized by the Regional Authority in the place where you are resident. The Regional Authority decides whether the education you obtained abroad corresponds to Czech standards. If the Regional Authority determines that the content and scope of the education you obtained at the foreign school differed significantly from the most closely equivalent education programme in the Czech Republic, they may reject your application for recognition. If the content and scope of the education you received differs only partially from the Czech equivalent, the regional authorities can require you to sit a validation examination in order to have your education recognized. The validation examination is usually a spoken examination in front of a committee of examiners and is in Czech unless you and the Regional Authority agree otherwise.
Recognition of Foreign University Education
The process of validating university degrees, diplomas or other documents certifying the completion of part or all of a study programme differs according to whether the Czech Republic has concluded a so-called “equivalence agreement” with the country where the foreign university which issued the document is located, or not. Equivalence agreements have been concluded with Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and Germany. Recognition (validation) is not required for citizens of Hungary, Poland, Slovenia or Slovakia; German citizens' educational qualifications are recognized based on a simplified application which must be approved if it meets all requirements.
For countries with no valid equivalence agreement, foreign higher education is usually recognized by a Czech state university that offers a study programme with similar content (note that private universities do not hold these powers). In exceptional cases, where doubts exist as to which public higher education institution has a similar study programme and is thus competent to decide on the recognition, the certificate of recognition can be issued by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports itself instead. If military science is concerned, recognition is determined by the Ministry of Defence; in the area of security services, recognition is determined by the Ministry of the Interior.
We recommend that you read the information on the recognition of academic qualifications provided on the website of MEYS, about the procedure involved to get your higher education qualifications officially recognized.