Recognition of professional qualifications in the sectors of crafts and sport

Recognition of professional qualifications in the sectors of crafts and sport and recreation, which is the area of Negotiation Chapter 3, was discussed at a two-day workshop organised by the Policy and Legal Advice Centre (PLAC III) on 17-18 November 2020.

The first day of the workshop was dedicated to the field of crafts. Project expert Maja Grašič presented to the participants a comparative analysis of the practices in selected European Union countries in regulation ofprofessions. The definition of regulated professions is set in the Directive on recognition of professional qualifications (2005/36). Regulation of professions is done to secure protection of public health, safety, environment, consumers as well as to secure quality of services. There are more than 6,000 regulated professions in the EU. The process of deregulation is ongoing in almost all EU Member States with the aim to facilitate access to regulated professions, increase competitiveness and boost employment, Grašič said. In the craft sector, Grašič presented an analysis of regulation practice in Germany, Slovenia and Denmark. Germany is the example of an EU country with the most comprehensive system of crafts regulation, with a developed system of dual education, while a master craftsman examination is required. Slovenia implemented a reform that resulted in reducing a number of regulated professions, which require professional qualifications and licensing, from 65 to only 25. Denmark does not require professional qualifications to perform a craft activity in accordance with the law, but there are exceptions for certain professions, which require an appropriate permit issued on the basis of relevant documents on schooling and passing the professional exam.

Representatives of line ministries (of education; labour and social policy; tourism and trade; economy), as well as representatives of Qualification Agency, National Alliance for Local Economic Development, Serbian Association of Employers and Serbian Chamber of Commerce attended the workshop.

Recognition of professional qualifications in sport and recreation sector was on the agenda of the second day of the workshop attended by the representatives of the Ministry of Youth and Sport and Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Telecommunications.  PLAC III project expert presented an analysis on sport profession’s regulation practices in the EU.

Sport is one of the professions in the EU with a high level of mobility; there are two ways of regulations across the EU – regulating a profession for all sports and regulation for a specific sport discipline. Sport instructor is the profession in the sector that is most often regulated – in as much as 19 Member States, Grašič said. At the initiative of France, a regulation has been adopted in 2019 establishing a Common Training Test (CTT) for ski instructors as the first profession ever. That led to automatic recognition of qualifications for ski instructors with CTT, as the only profession apart from those listed in the Directive where automatic recognition of qualifications is applied.

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