OCDEL Creates Internal Evaluation Process for ECE Professionals with Foreign Degrees

Pennsylvania’s Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) and The Pennsylvania Key have developed an initiative to support early childhood education professionals who obtained education outside of the United States by creating an internal process for foreign degree evaluations.

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The new resource will help to reduce administrative and financial burdens to early childhood education professionals and limit out-of-pocket expenses.

As of December 1, foreign degree evaluations for individuals applying for placement on OCDEL’s career pathway will occur seamlessly through services provided by education credential evaluators.

As part of the initiative, each applicant will receive support during the evaluation process with evaluators and have their documents linked in their Pennsylvania PD Registry account. This will allow applicants and other support teams to obtain evaluated educational documents as needed.

The service is available at no cost for the duration of the current fiscal year. After this fiscal year, the service will be available at a substantial discount. Participants are encouraged to share their experiences with OCDEL to help inform future implementation and improvements.

For applicants seeking reimbursement for previously evaluated documents, the foreign degree voucher program will continue reimbursements through December 31, after which all ECE Career Pathway applicants will be encouraged to seek evaluations through the new process.

More information can be found on the Pennsylvania Key’s internal education evaluation webpage.