If you apply for the Ministry’s general opinion (link to getting opinion on your credential) on your education obtained abroad or for the ministerial certificate of equivalence of your foreign documents of education with the relevant Polish award (link to getting opinion on your credential) (on the basis of the applicable international agreements), you should – apart from the relevant educational documents – submit to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education their certified translation, done by a Polish sworn translator entered into the list of sworn translators maintained by the Minister of Justice. (This requirement does not concern applications for a general opinion on documents issued in the following languages: English, French, German, Russian and Ukrainian).
The translation should be certified (signed and sealed) in such a way that there are no doubts as to its authenticity. If the translation includes several pages, the sworn translator should certify the whole translation by sealing and signing every single page. The seal and signature may also be placed on the last page alone but in such a case the single pages of the translation should be bound in a way which excludes their separation (i.e. clipped or stapled together and additionally secured with the seal).
Sworn translators are authorised in Poland to provide translations from a particular language (or languages) into Polish. The Ministry may refuse to accept a translation in a situation where the translator misuses the above mentioned rights by additionally certifying translations from other, similar languages (e.g. a translator of Russian certifies translation of Ukrainian or Belarusian documents).
In accordance with the Recommendation on Criteria and Procedures for the Assessment of Foreign Qualifications, adopted by the Lisbon Recognition Convention Committee at its second meeting, Rīga, 6 June 2001, titles of foreign qualifications should be provided in the original language, without translation, in order to avoid confusion. A translation alone is not equivalent to the recognition of a qualification. Information on the comparability of foreign credentials can be provided by institutions established for this purpose in a given country.
Comparison of foreign educational documents to the relevant Polish awards is a form of their recognition, which – pursuant to Art. 24 of the Act on the academic degrees and the academic title as well as on the degrees and the title within the scope of art (14 March 2003) – exceeds the competence of a translator. The task of the latter is, in contrast, to translate the text of the foreign document into the relevant language as accurately as possible.
Examples of translators’ misusing their competence include:
- cases where the names of foreign documents such as the American High School Diploma or British GCE are rendered as świadectwa dojrzałości (although their equivalence with Polish maturity certificates can be stated only by local educational authorities, by means of nostrification); similarly, foreign university degrees such as the American Bachelor, or Ukrainian bakalawr are translated as licencjat without the above mentioned rights;
- cases where a Russian academic degree kandydat nauk is replaced by its Polish equivalent – doktor – while the Russian doktor is the quivalent of the Polish doktor habilitowany. A person who does not know Russian will not be able to distinguish whether they are dealing with a lower or a higher academic degree awarded in Russia;
- cases where the names of foreign schools are replaced by Polish terms relating to the level of education, for example, a Russian utchilishtche or college (equivalents of Polish secondary schools) are sometimes translated as “higher education institutions”