Education Ministry demands forms in person

Immigrants to Israel are being forced to go in person to the Education Ministry offices to submit forms to get their academic degrees recognized, despite the coronavirus pandemic, MKs in the Knesset Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee were told on Wednesday.

The ministry is refusing to receive documents by email, and a page on the ministry website for receiving forms does not currently work, leaving submitting forms in person as the only option. Information for submitting the forms is available only in Hebrew.

“Israel needs more doctors and engineers, so the government should make it easier, not harder, for immigrants to get their degrees from abroad recognized,” the chairman of the committee, Likud MK David Bitan, said.

Bitan warned that laws about getting degrees recognized are out of date. For instance, it is difficult to get recognition for degrees earned online, and some medical specialties abroad are not recognized at all in Israel.

He said the ministry was demanding even more forms for degrees to be recognized despite the difficulties in obtaining forms abroad during the pandemic.

The MKs on the committee were told that it takes five months to go through the bureaucratic process of getting academic degrees recognized.

There is no government ministry that recognizes engineering degrees from abroad, the MKs were told.

Tzipi Weinberg, the head of the Education Ministry department that recognizes academic degrees, told the committee that the process of immigrants getting their degrees from abroad recognized depends on their country. For instance, degrees from Russia and Ukraine take longer, because her staff has only two workers who speak Russian and Ukrainian.