Upset over qualification conversion that doesn’t offer Hebrew

An Israeli woman who recently moved to Britain was left “deeply troubled” this week after seeking to convert her teaching qualification – only to find that the only Israeli language option was Arabic.

The woman, who wants to remain anonymous, was trying to convert her Israeli pre-school education qualification into the British equivalent through the website of UK NARIC, and was left shocked when Hebrew translations were not offered, but Arabic translations were.

UK NARIC is the designated UK national agency for the comparison of international qualifications, which offers online web-based services providing official statements of comparability. It requests that the user provide translations of the certificates, but operates a paid-for translation service if they are unable to do so.

Speaking to Jewish News, the Israeli woman said: “I am upset that the British government website for converting qualifications of overseas to English standard could not recognise Hebrew, the national Language of Israel. I find it deeply troubling.”

A spokesperson for UK NARIC said: “We have a multi-language team. At the moment, we support 19 languages under the Translation Waiver Scheme. The number and the languages change from time-to-time as staff join us and leave. This reflects, and depends upon, the language skills of our multi-lingual team.”

They added: “Currently, Arabic is one of the languages we support but we do not have a Hebrew speaker at the moment in the organisation, therefore Hebrew is not supported at this time, although it may be in the future. For these reasons, Arabic will show in certain contexts, but not Hebrew.”