A Common European Qualification?

Is it possible to develop a common qualification for psychologists throughout Europe? Is it possible to develop a system for recognizing individual or accrediting university qualifications across the different European countries? And would this be a system for accrediting only individuals (such as a Diploma qualification) or would it be a system for accrediting university programs, providing a template for them to follow? What are the obstacles to the recognition of qualifications?

These are some of the questions addressed by the papers in the special section of this issue. The papers are based on presentations made at a symposium presented at the VIIth European Congress of Psychology in London in July 2001, where the so-called EuroPsyT Framework was launched and strongly welcomed. The symposium itself, which was programmed during the final morning of the Congress, attracted well over 150 participants and elicited a substantial amount of interest—as well as a large number of comments and questions. This proved to be the culmination of a number of Congress presentations made over the previous 3-year period, all of which warmly welcomed the project. The topic of mobility and the recognition of qualifications is clearly an issue of great interest.

While the project is of great interest to the profession, its qualified members, and its students, it is also of central interest to the European Commission. In 1957 the Treaty of Rome gave workers the right to live and work anywhere they chose within the European Community. However, since then, free movement has been hampered by the failure of member states to recognize each other's qualifications. Initially, lengthy negotiations (a total of about 17 years) finally led to member states agreeing to common minimal education standards and the automatic recognition of qualifications for seven professions (medical physicians, nurses, midwives, dentists, pharmacists, veterinarians, and architects), through so-called sectoral (or vertical) directives. The remaining professions were covered by the so-called general (or horizontal) directive (89/48/EEC), which also covers psychologists. This has been in force for over 10 years now and has not proved to be an effective means for promoting mobility or indeed for facilitating the mutual recognition of qualifications. In June 2001, therefore, the Commission launched a public consultation on the main issues under consideration toward the establishment of a new directive on the recognition of professional qualifications and issued a proposal for such a new Directive in March 2002. This draft directive aims to consolidate and standardize the legal framework for the recognition of professional qualifications.

The new Directive is intended to replace both the sectoral and the general directives, and to cover all regulated professions. There are two main principles behind the new proposals: facilitating free movement while maintaining standards in order to protect the public. The European Federation of Psychologists Associations (EFPA) has been involved in the consultation and in discussions at the European level, in particular over whether it is possible to develop a “platform” (i.e., an agreed framework of qualification) that could constitute one of the appendices of the new Directive. The General Assembly of the EFPA was unanimously in support of the EuroPsyT Framework, which was developed by the Leonardo-funded project team between 1999 and 2001. This team, which consists of 16 individual partners from 12 countries (EU, EFTA and a new partner for their phase II from a Central European Country, Hungary) is now working on further developments in an attempt to develop a Diploma qualification that might serve as a “common platform,” and that could facilitate mobility and the recognition of qualifications across Europe. This task poses considerable challenges; the papers in this issue present some of the challenges and some of the possible options to address them.

In the first paper in this special section, Peiro and Lunt map out the broad context for developing a common qualification in Europe. In the second paper Lunt presents the common framework developed by a project team funded in part by the EU under its Leonardo da Vinci program. The team that developed the framework considered both “input” (curriculum) and “output” (competency) models of education and training, and ended up with a predominantly “input”-based model to underpin the common framework—though with a commitment to consider further how an “output” model might inform future work.

In the third paper, Roe pursues this issue and considers the very important question of the competencies required for competent (and thus responsible and ethical) practice. It is clear that if professions ask the public to trust them, and if professional competence is a matter of public protection, there should be transparent definitions of the nature and standards of competence required for independent professional practice. This is clearly of interest to the Commission with its commitment to protect the public.

The issue of competencies is also developed in the paper by Gauthier, who writes from a Canadian perspective; in Canada mobility and recognition of qualifications has been achieved through the use of a competency-based approach.

In the fifth paper, the Nordic colleagues from the project team (Jern, Nieminen, and Odland) present the framework for the common recognition of qualifications which has been in existence in the Nordic countries for a number of years, and in particular they raise the issue of the postgraduate or specialization qualification.

Finally Bernhard Wilpert provides a very relevant reflection on the process of the project and in particular highlights some of the ingredients that have made the achievement of the results possible.

I hope that these articles will serve to contribute to the debate in this area and also to stimulate thinking and discussion among those who are contributing to professional education and training, whether at the university, the professional association, or the policy level. We are at a cross-roads and have an unusual opportunity to move forward to greater “convergence” of qualifications. In this we are encouraged by the Ministers of Higher Education across Europe and the so-called “Bologna process.” The challenges are considerable, and the rewards are great.