Seminar on frameworks with experts from abroad
On 7-8 May 2012 in Warsaw's Copernicus Conference Centre, a seminar was held on the preparations for the Polish referencing report. The meeting was attended by Polish and foreign experts from Scotland, Austria and Germany, who shared information with Polish experts about the extent to which the qualifications frameworks are prepared in their countries. The first day, the main topic of the meeting was to discuss the table of descriptors for levels 6-8 of the Polish Qualifications Framework, presented by Dr. Stanisław Sławiński, NQF project expert. He informed participants that the discussion on the substantive content of the descriptors has been completed, and that the only work remaining is to edit the entries. Participants pointed out that the descriptor definitions are too detailed, in their opinion, while at the same time, certain general terms, which are difficult to define are overused, such as "basic", "simple" or routine".
Dr. Sławiński responded that the descriptor table is an attempt to organise certain concepts by employing consistently used language, where certain terms should be more precisely defined. At the same time he mentioned attempts to test the process of assigning already existing diplomas to the qualifications framework. These tests of the process are being conducted to develop a logical procedure to help in using the framework.
On the second day of the seminar, NQF project expert Horacy Dębowski presented the state of the work on entering specific qualifications into the national qualifications Register. Then, the foreign experts described the process of introducing qualifications frameworks in their countries. The Scottish framework, which has been functioning for 10 years, was presented by Aileen Ponton, the project director of that project. Afterwards, Eduard Staudecker spoke about the preparations for introducing the qualifications framework in Austria and about the time period for defending the Austrian referencing report. It was understood from his presentation that the Austrians had already developed such a framework three years ago, and it was only a matter of time before it would be referenced to the European Qualifications Framework. The last speaker, Michael Schopf of Germany, informed participants that work on the qualifications framework is still underway in his country, as are discussions on assigning diplomas to specific levels.
