On the streets of German cities, you can find janitors with university degrees
The Federal Government Commissioner for Migration, Maria Böhmer, demands easing the procedure for recognizing foreign higher education diplomas. She calls the current situation in Germany 'squandering the most valuable potential.' As 'Русская Германия' notes, the government approves new programs to attract highly qualified specialists from abroad, while migrants already living in the country cannot apply their knowledge and skills for the benefit of the country.
The procedure for confirming the acquired specialization is under the jurisdiction of the federal states. According to the Federal Commissioner for Migration, this 'unjustifiably complicates the path of the foreigner,' who is forced to 'fight through the jungle of bureaucracy,' 'sometimes without seeing a concrete perspective.' As a rule, the verification of foreign university diplomas is carried out by state ministries of education or ministries of science. Paradoxically, these departments unconditionally accept documents from only two categories of people. The first are EU citizens who received their education in EU countries or in other states of the 'post-industrial world' (USA, Japan, South Korea, etc.). The second are late resettlers, ethnic Germans from CIS countries. For Jewish refugees and asylum seekers, there is no unified system, nor a legally established body; their issues are resolved within the 'scissors' of employment agencies.
The problem, as experts from the German Economic Institute (DWI) emphasize, however, lies not only in the 'unequal approach to applicants' but also in the fact that for many university specializations there are no complete equivalents in the German higher education system. Therefore, even if their case is favorably reviewed, degree holders often receive a document recording the original spelling of the qualification, but not permission to work in that field. Simply because that field does not exist in Germany (it is not recorded in the directories of the employment agency). A 'Prepodawatel nemezkogo jasyka dlja wysschih utschebnyh sawedenij' will never get a university chair, even after completing a Referendariat (a year of unpaid internship) and a couple of state exams. At best, they will get the right to teach in elementary school or in integration courses for compatriots who arrived a bit later.
The imperfection of the system for recognizing foreign diplomas is a much more serious problem than the formation of groups for regional studies courses for Muslim housewives, experts are convinced. Both regional studies and housewives are given a significant place in the 'National Integration Plan,' the favorite brainchild of the Federal Government and its head personally. But in this 'historic' document, as Chancellor Merkel called it, there is no place for young masters and bachelors, whose fault or misfortune is only that they completed their master's and bachelor's degrees abroad in the 'civilized world'.
'The dramatic paradox of excessive immigration and a shortage of skilled workers,' DWI experts believe, could be eliminated. It seems that this is exactly what Maria Böhmer advocated at the conference of state migration commissioners, stating that 'education in general is a key point of integration,' and higher education in particular is 'also a cornerstone in the rise of the German economy.'
But even with such loud statements, it is unlikely to come to concrete measures to change the legislation. Known for her remarkably passive loyalty to the integration policy of the 'black-red' cabinet, Maria Böhmer proposes 'to create new bodies for competent consideration of issues of foreign higher education,' 'preferably at the federal level, but in the absence of funds, at the state level.' And to reconsider the distribution of these very funds: allocate for the 'optimization' of recognition of university diplomas as much as... €1.5 million.
In the context of the annual €750 million provided for by the 'National Integration Plan,' one and a half million will apparently be enough to save former associate professors from a career as floor washers and save billions on attracting 400,000 highly qualified foreign specialists (engineers, computer graphics specialists, teachers, IT specialists, natural scientists) needed to maintain the German market at a more or less acceptable competitive level.