NOC & Education Permit
Apparently United States Higher Education Commission has a huge database of accredited traditional & non-traditional education providers across 52 states of the USA, however each education provider has gone through a very rigorous and strict evaluation criterion to earn full accreditation status. Similarly, when it comes to the students studying with American universities from different parts of the world specifically nontraditional universities, every country has its own format of validation and authentication of foreign academic credentials.
Equivalence is the major requirement for acceptance when it comes to foreign academic credentials. However, the process of getting an equivalence completed consists of several steps of verification of documents related to the education acquired. The most important factor is the recognition of the university, as it has to appear in the United States Higher Education Commission's database or any of the 6 regional accreditations of US Department of Education (USDE) and Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).
Courses shall be accredited as per academic standards of the parent country of the student through USHEC under the membership of regional accreditation. The certificate should be in a field that does not directly be related to any scientific field as in that case practical credit hours or professional work experience in the field of study. Also, the duration of the course should also be equivalent to traditional education or certain exemptions shall be granted through the government exceptionally, through the help of USHEC’s legal assistance. Furthermore it is mandatory that the applicant meets the equivalence requirements of the country of study as well as the country of residence, whereas the courses for non-traditional education may be self-paced but the total length of the program would remain the same i.e. a master’s degree program regardless if it has been completed in 4 years, the 60 credit hours shall be equivalent to 2 years of education standard.
The set of documents required for equivalence verification are different for graduate and post graduate programs which are as follows:
The United States Higher Education Commission based upon the submission of the aforementioned documents shall be processing the equivalence, however documents shall be verified through all relevant bodies. In case all documents are not submitted or are not valid or expired, the United States Higher Education Commission reserves the rights to dismiss such file.