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Ingrid Lunt, London UK
1.The Treaty of Rome 1957
2.General Directives for Mutual
Recognition
3.The role of EFPPA
4.Various solutions to facilitate
mobility
5.The EU context
6. A European Diploma or Framework for
Psychologists Training
1. The Treaty of Rome
1957.
The European Community was established over 40 years ago in
1957, when the Treaty of Rome envisaged a single 'common'
market within the European Community in which 'freedom to work
anywhere in the European Community is one of the basic rights
laid down by the Treaty of Rome.' The Treaty laid down freedom
of movement of goods, services and professionals. In the early
days of implementation of the Treaty of Rome, there were
attempts to harmonise qualifications across member countries.
This meant achieving virtually identical patterns of education
for that profession across all member states of the European
Union. This harmonisation through so-called Sectoral
Directives, i.e. specialist Directives, was achieved for seven
professions (doctors, dentists, nurses, midwives, vets,
pharmacists, architects) with agreements on the harmonisation
(or standardisation) across all the member countries of the
content of courses, minimum length of study and training, and
skills that a graduate in the field should possess.
For other professional groups, it soon became clear that
attempts to harmonise qualifications across member states were
too complex and time-consuming and the task of agreeing a
common curriculum for all professionals across the EC in a
single field began to look impossible.
2. General Directives for
Mutual Recognition
Awareness of the complexity of the task of harmonising
education and training in professions across Europe, led the
European Commission in 1985 to introduce a new approach to
cover other professions to which access is in some way
restricted (or regulated) by the State either by law or through
a professional organisation and which require at least three
years' university level training or equivalent.
These are covered by the General Directive 89/48/EEC,
entitled Mutual Recognition of Higher Education Diplomas, (and
more recently the second General Directive 92/51/EEC). The
approach of these Directives is based on equivalence rather
than harmonisation and on the mutual recognition of
qualifications. It does this by the principle of mutual
recognition which enables suitably qualified professionals to
have their qualifications recognised and to use the
professional title in another member state from that in which
they qualified.
The Directive is intended to encourage the free movement of
skilled labour around the European Union while acknowledging
that standards and content differ between countries; it seeks
to establish some equivalence between those trained in the
countries of the European Community (or Union). This means that
a psychologist qualified and recognised in one member state
should be able to move and practise in another member state
(subject to certain provisos).
The Directive was produced by the European Commission; once
accepted it is then up to the national governments to implement
the directive, usually through their government departments.
This has in fact happened in the majority of countries, though
some have been slow to implement the Directive. In theory,
then, the psychologist qualified in one country in the European
Union should be able to travel to another European Union
country and have their qualifications recognised, or at least
where the qualifications differ significantly, take an
examination or undergo a period of adaptation.
So far there has been relatively little opportunity for
psychologists to test out the Directive, although the UK has
been a net importer, partly for reasons of language and partly
because it continues to have a shortage of qualified
psychologists. In addition, psychology is not a regulated
profession in a number of countries, and the Directive does not
therefore apply.
Although the European Commission demands mutual recognition,
it is strongly opposed to regulation at the European level. In
this, it upholds the principle of subsidiarity, by which
decisions are taken at the national level where possible,
within a European framework. This means that individual member
states are delegated to take their own decisions, though within
an increasingly over-arching and prescriptive framework.
3. The role of EFPPA .
The majority of professions in Europe have developed
professional federations which bring together national
professional organisations and which are useful in seeking
greater agreement over the implementation of the Directive;
some of these have offices in Brussels and play an increasingly
powerful role.
EFPPA (the European
Federation of Professional Psychologists Associations) is a
federation of 30 national psychology associations within
Europe. It was formed in 1981, in part in response to the
challenge of mobility, when representatives of a number of
national psychology associations decided to get together to
compare practices, and to develop more common procedures. It
has no legal standing in relation to European government (nor
do other European professional federations). EFPPA membership includes all the
15 European Union countries, and a growing number of other
countries. In its 18 year existence it has had a number of Task
Forces which have aimed to compare practice, to recommend
standards in education and training. In 1990, a Task Force of
EFPPA which considered
training for psychologists produced a report entitled Optimal
Standards for Training for Professional Psychologists.
In its report, the Task Force stated:
" EFPPA ...fully
recognises that the content and form of training in
professional psychology in each country will inevitably reflect
its own legal, educational and professional traditions.
However, to encourage international co-operation among
professional psychologists and to assist member associations in
their efforts to develop professional training and practice in
their own countries, EFPPA
is publishing the following statement which describes the
optimal standards for training required for independent
professional practice."
The Optimal Standards document ( EFPPA 1990) was an attempt to
produce a very broad framework with some elements, such as
length of training, location in university base, theory and
practical application, with which all member associations could
agree, or at least would aspire towards. This document provided
a very important beginning, although it has no legal status and
is nothing more (nor less) than a rather broad goal, and is
aspirational rather than prescriptive, with 'optimal' rather
than 'minimal' standards.
Another EFPPA Task Force
focussing on the psychology curriculum discovered that there is
a good deal of similarity and agreement between different
countries over basic psychological theory (Newstead 1995). The
differences appear particularly in the more professional
domain, and in particular over how specialised the basic
education is and what model of practice is adopted. Other Task
Forces of EFPPA in fields
such as clinical psychology, health psychology, psychotherapy,
educational psychology, forensic psychology, organisational
psychology, traffic psychology have attempted to provide a map
of the field of training and practice in those areas across the
European countries.
4. Various solutions to
facilitate mobility.
There have been various attempts to address the problems of
mobility. For a number of years there was an attempt by an EFPPA Task Force on European
Legal Matters to gain a sectoral directive; these failed partly
because the Commission is no longer interested in this
approach, and partly because it was not possible to demonstrate
any commonality of education and training patterns. There have
been discussions about a 'European Register' of qualified
psychologists, but these have not got very far since the
monitoring and maintenance of a Register is a considerable
task, and there has been no agreement as to the basis of the
Register. Nevertheless, this is the approach taken by
colleagues in the USA and Canada where the Register of Health
Service Providers in Psychology exist 'to identify health
service providers in psychology who meet educational and
training standards' (Canadian Register) or 'to develop
standards for evaluating the credentials of psychologists and
other health care providers' (US Register). Both have criteria
for listing and recognition across states in North America and
licensing is achieved through a common exam. This leads us to
consider a third kind of attempt to facilitate mobility of
recognition of qualifications, a common qualification or
framework.
5. The EU context
As already mentioned, the EU is neutral about these
decisions, provided that individual states are not preventing
mobility; however, the EU welcomes attempts by the profession
itself within Europe to develop frameworks such as this,
provided that it is being developed in a way which represents
and has credibility with the profession in the individual
countries. Current moves within Europe suggest that this
project is timely. Although the Directive 89/48/EEC attempted
to facilitate movement of professional psychologists between
member states of the EU, in practice, as we know, it is still
difficult for psychologists educated and trained in one country
to have their qualifications recognized in another country. At
the level of Ministerial debate, we see that there are
pressures for greater convergence in Higher Education systems.
For example, the Sorbonne Agreement, signed by the relevant
Ministers in France, Germany, Italy and UK in May 1998 aims to
create 'an open European area for higher learning' promoting
strategies such as the European Credit Transfer Scheme (ECTS)
and rationalisation to semester organization of the year. This
was followed in June 1999 by the Bologna Agreement, signed by
ministers of 29 European countries making a commitment to more
specific convergence in higher education systems and the
promotion of mobility in Europe, 'to consolidate the European
area of higher education'. Thus there are moves at the
political level to develop greater convergence of education
systems.
6. A European Diploma or
Framework for Psychologists Training
There are various possibilities of a European Diploma; one
version which is being developed by psychotherapists in Europe
(through the EAP), is to define a European Diploma as a measure
of equivalence with qualifications already recognised by
national professional associations: what could be called a
'weak' Diploma, in that it is a recognition or accreditation of
existing different qualifications. A 'strong' Diploma would
provide a common examination which students would take at the
same time as their own national qualification, and which might
require some 'top-up' study or modules available at the time.
This is the kind of Diploma developed by the European Council of Optometrists
Organisations (ECOO). Either kind of Diploma would then
serve as a passport for recognition as a psychologist in other
European countries.
The optometrists obtained some funds for their work from the
EU under its Leonardo da Vinci program and have now developed a
common examination leading to a European Diploma for
optometrists, which will be able to exist alongside national
qualifications and will facilitate recognition across member
countries of the EU. This involved working with cross-national
study groups who took responsibility for determining agreed
curricula, and then devised examinations in the area which are
then translated across the languages for administration in the
home country.
The Leonardo da Vinci funded project 1999-2001
The EU funded project which is taking place during 1999-2001
will provide a unique opportunity to develop a Common Framework
for Psychologists Training, which might in the future form the
basis for a European Diploma for psychologists.
What is the project aiming to achieve?
The project aims to achieve a specification in as much
detail of a framework for professional education and training
to the level of independent professional practice. For most
countries the prototype professional psychologist is a clinical
psychologist.
What have we done so far? We have made a detailed comparison
of the curricula for full psychology qualification of the 12
countries; the frameworks are relatively simple to see, though
they reveal considerable variation, in particular, in the time
and nature of specialisation. We have made a report on this
survey which will appear on the project website by end January
2000; the questions are: a) the formal qualification
requirements for independent practice, whether this is
regulated by law or other means, b) the framework for
qualifications, c) the detailed curriculum content. As might be
expected, there is considerable agreement over the foundation
or theoretical base for psychology, and much more variation in
the nature of the professional qualification. Our next step is
to look at a specification of competencies, and to see how far
these may be common; can we agree on a common framework while
allowing for local variations in terms of curriculum and 'mix'
of content? Can we identify a set of standards to provide an
agreed framework within which we might define some core
pre-requisites and components that could act as the mandatory
part of a core + option style of qualification within
Europe?
Specific questions include:
- how much common core can we identify (what
percentage?)
- how much additional qualification is needed if someone
wishes to move from practice in one country to practice in
the same specialisation in another?
- What are the differences between countries?
- Organisational structures? Content of job knowledge and
skills? Underpinning knowledge?
The project has 15 partners from 12 countries; the partners
are institutions represented by individuals, each of whom has a
commitment to consultation within their own country. The
partners include representatives of national professional
associations, universities, national training organisations,
and EFPPA ; each
representative has developed a consultation network in their
own country and is publishing regular pieces in national
psychologists newsletters/journals. The project has a
website.
So what do we conclude?
At the moment the project has had a relatively smooth
passage, partly because we have not yet got down to detail. The
project is warmly welcomed by EFPPA as a federation. However,
there is a long way to go before we can put any detail into the
framework, and although the project will undoubtedly have the
effect of bringing education and training systems closer
together, in the first instance, individual nation states cling
strongly to their own patters and traditions.
Framework
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Project
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Partners
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National Information
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Presentations
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Articles
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