National Initiatives to Ensure the Recognition and Certification of Skills and Qualifications for Migrant Workers - Poland

Source: Bureau for Academic Recognition and International Exchange

Strategy for Recognition of European Professional Qualifications Under the General System

The project "Strategy for Recognition of European Professional Qualifications Under the General System" (MATO2/PL/9/1) has been developed in the scope of the Dutch pre-accession assistance program MATRA.

The Polish stakeholders of the project are:

• the Bureau for Academic Recognition and International Exchange, Polish ENIC/NARIC centre and the contact point for the recognition of professional qualifications under the directives of the general system (89/48/EEC, 92/51/EEC, 99/42/EC).
• the Ministry of National Education and Sport, which co-ordinates the general system of mutual recognition of professional qualifications
• the competent authorities for the recognition of qualifications for pursue of regulated professions (ministries and other bodies appointed for this purpose).

The Dutch counterparts of the project are:

• Nuffic (Netherlands organization for international cooperation in higher education),
• COLO – contact point for the recognition of qualifications under the directive 92/51/EWG
• Senter International and VTL – institutions involved in the organizational and financial issues of the project.

The aim of the project is to implement the system of recognition of qualifications for pursue of regulated professions and to prepare Polish institutions involved in this procedures, i.e. Bureau for Academic Recognition and International Exchange and the competent authorities for the roles which they are to play after the Polish accession to EU.

The whole project has been divided in 4 parts, the so called work packages.

The Work Package 1 focuses on creating the strategy for the recognition of professional qualifications. This objective is reached through elaborating a blueprint for the Polish competent authorities, which includes guidelines for the assessment of foreign qualifications, with special focus on detecting the so called substantial differences between Polish and foreign training programmes leading to the conferment of given qualifications.

In the scope of the Work Package 2 the procedures for the recognition of EU professional qualifications are developed within institutional framework existing in Poland. The main output of this work package is the elaboration of so called “operations plans” for these procedures, created by each competent authority and tested during a pilot project.

The Work Package 3 concentrates on the training of the staff of the competent authorities and the Bureau for Academic Recognition and International Exchange. The training has been facilitated through various activities, such as:

• workshops and seminars on the application of EU directives on the recognition of professional qualifications (30 June -1 July 2003, 17-18 November 2003, and 6-7 July 2004)
• consultancy provided by Dutch experts to the Polish competent authorities and Bureau for Academic Recognition and International Exchange
• study visit of the representatives of the Bureau for Academic Recognition and International Exchange, competent authorities and Ministry of National Education and Sport to the Dutch institutions involved in recognition of professional qualifications

Within the Work Package 4 an accessible information system on the recognition of EU professional qualifications has been developed. It consists of the following elements:

• website on the recognition of EU qualifications for the pursue of regulated professions
• database on regulated professions in Poland including legal acts and other information related to each profession
• information materials including brochure for general public on the recognition of EU professional qualifications and a guide for recognition specialists (pdf format)
• database on recognition decisions available for the Polish competent authorities and national coordinators; the objective of the database is to facilitate the coherence in the application of the EU directives.

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