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POLISH LIFEWIDE LIFELONG LEARNING (LLL) IN THE FIELD OF BUSINESS AS EXEMPLIFIED BY ACCOUNTING
A. Karmanska R. Grabowski
Doing business in the knowledge based economy, whose resources and accessibility are multiplying in a nearly geometric progress, poses a great challenge to business people. The context of sustainable growth, which is very important at present, explicitly determines educational tasks within the business sphere. Business requires a permanent updating of knowledge and skills as well as developing an ethical conduct expressing the concern for the environment and people who do not find its consequences indifferent.
Accounting is an area in which business activity is focused, like in a camera lens. This activity is expressed by the financial measures of the used assets, the sources of their financing and the achieved results. Accounting is a metalanguage of this activity. A professional operation within accounting, which long ago stopped being craft and became art, requires special competences [Karmanska, Boroch, 2013]. Against this background, it is necessary to point to the need for systemic solutions in the area of educating people interested in functioning in business, to be more precise in accounting. Under such conditions, only when following the LLL necessity, can one speak about the desired adequacy of professional competences of the people conducting the accounting activity for the needs of contemporary business. In view of the above, it seems well justified: (1) within the practice of business education - to use the term the LLL imperative, (2) within the area of science referring to business education - to recognize the research [Drumlak, 2011a, Drumlak, 2013; Nadolna 2013], which will more and more often refer to the paradigm of business education, evidently approached by the LLL, a commonly recognized concept of education (scientific achievements), which at present and at a certain time in the future will provide the community of scientists working on the problems of business education with the model problems and solutions [Kuhn, 2009, p. 10].
Creating the favourable conditions to the LLL development in Poland, on 10 September 2013 the Council of Ministers of the Polish Republic adopted a document Perspektywa uczenia siq przez cate zycie (Prospects of Lifelong Learning) [Perspektywa (Prospects)] 2013, p. 5. This document explicitly expresses the necessity of treating the LLL as an important component of the Polish educational policy. The implementation of the LLL, conducted also by professional organisations such as associations, committees and other initiatives associating professional environmental groups, is in with a realistic chance of being supported by the state. It may be assumed that thanks to this document, in the Polish practice, the LLL imperative based in a complex way on the legal foundations of the EU recommendations [the European Parliament and Council
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Recommendation, 2008] , has acquired a serious position in the development of the Polish educational system. Prospects of Lifelong Learning1 2 is a programme document ensuring the cohesion of projects undertaken in Poland in the LLL area. It creates the holistic framework for different activities in this area3, also those activities undertaken by business environments in favour of the development of professions important in business activity, among which many are connected with accounting.
National Professional Qualifications Standards and International Education Standards - conceptual framework for the Polish LLL in the area of accounting. In Poland in the area of business education, including accounting, the educational activity conducted by the Accountants Association in Poland [About AAP, 2014] and the Polish Chamber of Chartered Accountants [About KIRB, 2014] is becoming increasingly important. The following documents are important in the development of the substantive LLL programmes offered by these organisations in the spirit of the aforementioned Prospects of Lifelong Learning: (1) official National Professional Qualifications Standards [Act of 2008, art. 4], and (2) education standards to be discussed later.
Professional qualifications (competence) standards [Krajowe (National),
2014]:
(a) are a kind of norms defining the scope and level of the knowledge, skills and psychophysical features which are necessary to perform typical professional tasks according to the requirements of elementary work stations in the job. It is a norm accepted by the representatives of professional and industrial organisations, employers, employees and other key social partners;
1 „In the course of developing the idea of Lifewide Lifelong Learning - LLL in the EU the general principles of this policy were agreed on. They are applied at different levels in the member countries (central, regional or local) and with regard to different organisers of education (teaching and training) within the educational systems or outside the systems (organisers of non-formal education). These principles include: the appreciation of learning in different forms and places (lifewide learning); the appreciation of learning at every stage of life (lifelong learning); universality - application of the LLL policy to everybody; assessment and confirmation of the effects of learning irrespective of where, how and when it takes place; the development of partnership in favour of lifelong learning; positioning of a human being in the centre of interest of politics; effective investment in learning.” [Resolution, 2013]
2 There are three stages in the completion of activities for the purpose of preparation and implementation of the National Qualifications Framework [Creation of the Polish Qualifications Framework 2011, p. 3]: (1) expert work concluded with the study entitled Od Europejskich do Krajowych Ram Kwalifikacji (From the European to national qualifications frameworks) [Od Europejskich do Krajowych Ram Kwalifikacji, 2009], (2) work done by the Steering Committee for National Qualifications Frameworks in LLL and the Educational Research Institute, which resulted in the preparation in the middle of 2013 of the Reference Report. Reference of the Polish Qualifications framework for lifelong learning to the European Qualifications Framework. [Raport referencyjny (Reference Report), 2013], (3) adoption, in September 2013, of the document Perspektywa uczenia sig przez caie zycie (Prospects of Lifelong Learning [Perspektywa (Prospects), 2013], beginning (acc. to the plan) of the implementation of the National Qualifications Framework and the National Qualifications Register of lifelong learning [Nowe projekty (New projects), 2013].
3 Nota bene, the conditions are created for Poland to use the European funds in the years 20142020. It is connected with the Long-term Strategy of the National Development: Poland 2030, the Strategy of Human Capital development and Strategy of Social Capital Development, with the strategic document EU - Europe 2020 [Uchwata (Resolution), 2011].
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(b) are presented in the electronic description base [Kwalifikacje (Qualifications), 2014], which includes 300 professional competence standards, 253 standards of professional qualifications, 257 of module professional training programmes and also include standards of jobs connected with accounting (e.g. accounting assistant, specialist for accounting, specialist for management accounting);
(c) in the sphere of education standards they constitute the basis for the adjustment of programme foundation of professional training and examination requirements standards for the needs of the economy;
(d) from the employer’s perspective - the design of work stations, the construction of the appraisal system, the remuneration system or the determination of career paths and personal development may be based on them;
(e) they are also in favour of comparability and recognisability of qualifications of employees coming from different countries, they facilitate the confirmation of employees’ qualifications on different labour markets and in different educational systems; thus, they are in favour of professional mobility and professional development.
Offering the LLL programmes in the area of accounting, AAP and KIBR -being members of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) [About IFAC, 2014] - follow, issued by the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB) [About IAES, 2014]: (1) the International Education Standards (lESs), created since 2003 and (2) the Framework for International Education Standards for Professional Accountants, published in 2009. So far the IAESB has worked out eight IESs. (Afterwards, in October 2009 IAESB began a process of updating of all IESs. The process is being finished at present. On the global scale, the LLL harmonization with regard to accounting has been enforced by the international significance of knowledge and skills important on this business plane. Having this in mind, the IAESB prepares not only the IESs. It also presents guidelines and information materials such as the International Education Guidelines for Professional Accountants (IEGs) and the International Education Papers for Professional Accountants (IEPs) [International, 2014]. The Prospects of lifelong learning, the National Professional Qualifications Standards and the International Education Standards for Professional Accountants create, in a systemic way, a sample platform for the Polish LLL education proposals in the area of business (accounting). Their thorough analysis indicates the significance of the LLL business education and the complexity of related problems. The Polish systemic solutions with regard to the LLL in the area of accounting may be assessed at the moment as well developed and cohesive. They gave rise to an original concept of an LLL four-tier path of acquisition of professional accountancy qualifications, which comes as a unique solution1. The challenges which the Polish LLL educators face (or as it may seem not only Polish) in the area of accounting are presented in a separate study [Grabowski, Karmanska, 2014].
1 Indicated by the research presented in: [Drumlak, 2011b].
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