This device allows you to recognize skills that you have acquired not through studies, but through work, training or life experience. First, you will have to check that the targeted profession is indeed taken up by the VDC. Then you will be invited to pass one or more tests in front of a jury of professionals, via a training organization. A successful test will result in a competence title. Each profession included in the VDC has a specific number of skills or competence titles (eg. the hairdressing profession includes four skills).

The competence title(s) you will obtain can help you prove your skills to the employer.

The Flemish Community provides a similar option, which is called the EVC (“Erkennen van Verworven Competenties”). This device is similar to the VDC, but it is applicable to fewer trainings.

Providing evidence of professional practice in the field / profession / type of position for which you are applying may be enough to get you hired by some employers. For this purpose, the CV can be very useful. Ask for support to make your Curriculum vitae.

You can find this support from various actors: administrations, associations, private coaches, the web …

Most jobs are found through word-of-mouth and networking. Hence the interest to get support from someone who has professional experience in Belgium or even in your professional field, in order to better know it and to discover its Belgian specificities. There are several organizations and programs that can help you.

For certain professional fields such as rescue, animation, sport or transport, there are specific certificates which can be obtained after training and tests. In order to get the recognition of such a foreign certificate in Belgium (e.g. first aid worker, youth worker or lifeguard), please contact the competent authority in your field of activity.

A diploma or its recognition is usually required for jobs in the public services, in order to prove your level of studies and to give you access to the corresponding jobs and salary levels.

If you do not have the required diploma, you can access the desired level by obtaining the corresponding access card (level A = Master, B = Bachelier or C = CESS/DSO, secondary education). In order to do so, you will have to pass an exam organized by the Selor (the official recruiter of the federal administration). The access card C may also be obtained upon presentation of all the competence titles for a profession (via the VDC).

If you want to teach within the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, you should be able to prove that you have the required qualifications to this end: pedagogical skills and knowledge of the discipline you wish to teach.

If you do not have the required diplomas, you can always register in the Primoweb database, which the executive boards of the schools consult to recruit their staff. People with the required qualifications will be prioritized, but in case of shortage, you might be contacted.

Do you want to know if your diploma allows you to demonstrate your entrepreneurial skills? The Diplodb and Anabin databases enable you to check whether your foreign diploma is accepted in Belgium to prove your skills in management and/or in your field of activity. If this is not the case, you may ask for advice from one of the accredited business counters, and check our alternatives: other solutions are possible.

This device allows you to recognize skills that you have acquired not through studies, but through work, training or life experience. First, you will have to check that the targeted profession is indeed taken up by the VDC. Then you will be invited to pass one or more tests, in front of a jury of professionals, via a training organization. A successful test will result in a competence title. Each profession included in the VDC has a specific number of skills or “ompetence titles (eg. the hairdressing profession includes four skills).

Obtaining all the competence titles related to a profession can allow you to access the profession in question, as an independent (e.g. being authorized to open your hair salon in Brussels).

The Flemish Community provides a similar option, which is called the EVC (“Erkennen van Verworven Competenties”). This device is similar to the VDC, but it is applicable to fewer trainings.

Proving that you have a significant experience in the profession you want to exercise as a self-employed may be enough to access the profession.

Proof of 3 to 5 years of experience will be required by the business counter, depending on the position you held in the past.

The Brussels and the Walloon regions have central juries that organize various tests allowing you to prove that you have the required skills to launch your own activity: basic management skills or professional skills (if you are entering a so-called regulated profession).

In order to prove the entrepreneurial skills required to start a business, you can also associate with someone who already has these skills (management or professional skills).

This third person must have an actual link with the company: he/she can be co-manager, employee, spouse or legal cohabitant… There are also exceptions and exemptions, which vary from region to region.

If you are unable to prove the required skills to launch your business, it is also possible to obtain them.

There are various training courses which will provide you the basic knowledge in business management, as well as the qualifications for a wide range of professions.

You would like to pursue higher studies but you do not hold the required diploma (end of secondary education diploma) or its recognition?

If you have several years of experience in the field in which you wish to study, you may be able to validate this prior experience through the VAE (“Valorisation des acquis de l’expérience”), by setting up of a file providing evidence of this experience. The VAE could enable you to access the chosen studies or even be exempted from a part of the study program.

The “Promotion sociale” has its own system of VAE called VA (“Valorisation des acquis”), because every form of learning (experience, training and studies) can be taken into account.

This system in the Flemish Community is called EVC (“Eerder Verworven Competenties”), or Validation of acquired competences.

You wish to pursue higher education but the recognition of your secondary education diploma (CESS) does not grant you access to the studies of your choice?

You have the possibility to pass the DAES exams (“Diplôme d’Aptitude à accéder à l’Enseignement Supérieur”), in front of the jury of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. The DAES gives you access to (nearly) all higher studies programmes in the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.

In the Flemish Community, if the recognition of your secondary education diploma (DSO) does not give you access to the higher education, you can contact directly the establishment of your choice. They will assess the situation and may suggest a preparatory year.

You wish to pursue higher studies in French-speaking Belgium and do not have your CESS (or its recognition), but you had started higher studies abroad?

If you can prove that you have completed the equivalent of at least 60 credits (ECTS) in former higher studies, you should be able to access the studies of your choice.

You want to resume higher studies in Belgium and already have a higher education level recognition (BES/Graduaat, Bachelor, Master)?

The level recognition of your foreign diploma should suffice to grant you access to the studies of your choice.

You need a CESS or DSO (Certificate of Higher Secondary Education) for your project?

You have the possibility to obtain this diploma, but also lower secondary school levels (CE1D et CE2D) by succeeding an exam organized by the Jury of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles or by the Jury of the Flemish community. Attendance at an information session is mandatory.

You need the secondary education diploma – CESS or DSO – to carry out your project?

The Social Promotion education in Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, proposes to adults a special programme with the purpose of obtaining the CESS. The timetables are flexible and the courses content is adjusted.

The “volwassenenonderwijs” (adults education) offers the same type of programmes in Flanders, in order to obtain the Diploma Secundair Onderwijs (DSO).

You want to pursue higher education in Belgium but do not have the required title (CESS – Certificate of Higher Secondary Education) or its recognition?

You can take the entrance exam organized by all universities of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. It will open you the door to (almost) all higher studies in French-speaking Belgium.

Please note that this exam grants you access to higher education, which is not equal to obtaining a Certificate of Higher Secondary Education (CESS).

Some studies do require specific entrance examinations. Passing theses exams gives you access to the studies in question, without having to provide a secondary education diploma. These specific exams are:

• The specific exams organized by the Hautes Écoles to become a social assistant or a social and fiscal advisor;
• The exams organized by the faculties in “pplied Sciences to access civil engineering studies;
• The A1 paramedical jury, which gives access to the Bachelor in Nursing and the Bachelor of Midwifery;
• The entrance exams (or preparatory years) organized by Social Promotion education, in order to access a Bachelor’s degree;
• The entrance test known as “Toelatingsproef graduaatsopleidingen”, for all the Graduate degrees offered by universities in the Flemish Community.

Many vocational training courses requiring a certain level of study are also accessible after passing an entrance test or taking a pretraining.

Find out more about the different conditions of admission by contacting the corresponding educational institution.

This device allows you to recognize skills that you have acquired not through studies, but through work, training or life experience. First, you will have to check that the targeted profession is indeed taken up by the VDC. Then you will be invited to pass one or more tests, in front of a jury of professionals, via a training organization. A successful test will result in a competence title. Each profession included in the VDC has a specific number of skills or competence titles (eg. the hairdressing profession includes four skills).

Obtaining all the competence titles related to a profession can allow you to access the profession in question, as an independent (e.g. being authorized to open your hair salon in Brussels).