Coming home: Credit Recognition in the context of the Science without Borders Program

File 1 pdf 232KB

The Brazilian government has financed more than 72 thousand undergraduate scholarships in the Science without Borders program. Students spent between 12 and 18 months in a foreign higher education institution taking courses and in internships. The main objective was to improve and internationalize Brazilian STEM education.
Although Brazilian institutions had agreed to fully acknowledge courses and credits taken abroad, in practice this happened in a very irregular base. To have an idea of the situation, we prepared an online survey specifically focused in understanding the actual situation of credit recognition. The survey had more than 900 valid responses, although the sample has an institutional distribution different from the program. Some features like public/private students ratio and country of destination are very similar to the program.
Nearly 75% of the respondents will have their graduation delayed by more than 6 months, mostly one year. This indicates that credit recognition is much more complicated than expected. In several cases the students did not have a single credit acredited. Many students of public universities argue the experience they had abroad was enough and they do not mind retarding their graduation.
The cost of the lack of credit recognition can be estimated and is certainly a hidden cost of the program.
Inducing a more open culture concerning credit recognition is an urgent action in the Brazilian higher education scene.

Author(s):

Leandro Tessler    
IFGW - Unicamp
Brazil

Aderson Farias do Nascimento    
UFRN
Brazil