The ICETE Qualification Comparability Framework
is a tool developed by the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education to assist international readability, comparability of qualifications and student mobility.

The following notes concern the ‘ICETE levels’ indicated in the framework.

• ICETE levels refer to the quality and level of learning opportunities but do not determine the status of institutions nor their ability to award formal degrees.  Global higher education is complex and that not all providers of theological education are in a place to obtain formal recognition by their local educational authorities, nor do they have the ability to award degrees with legal value in their local contexts.  The ICETE comparability table therefore serves as a comparative charts of the levels, credit duration and nomenclatures used.  The particular utility of this chart is to empower student mobility and readability of qualifications across regions.
• The English terms certificate, diploma, bachelor, master and doctoral that have been chosen as ICETE level descriptors, represent the most common nomenclatures to indicate determined higher education levels around the world. These should not however be taken to mean the same thing in all contexts.  In some countries, for example, there are issues of protected academic nomenclature (i.e ‘bachelor’ and ‘master’ might be reserved to formally approved higher education institutions).

The framework is indicative, and cannot fully capture the variations of different systems.