Knowledge management - from qualifications to competences

This paper deals with knowledge management. The works on the idea of the European Qualifications Framework proceeded rapidly in the second half of the nineties, when it became apparent that the globalisation process makes it necessary to develop tools of assessment and comparison of the qualifications acquired in different educational systems. The conviction that having a profession does not secure stable and lasting employment constituted the starting point. What is more, in an increasing number of cases the identification with only one profession becomes an obstacle in successful functioning on the labour market through limiting new opportunities of employment. That is why the European Qualifications Framework is the answer to the processes of globalisation and to the development of the economy based on knowledge as well as a tool valuable in comparing the competences acquired in the education systems of European states. The model of thinking about education that arises from this idea is to become – in the longer and shorter perspective – a fundament for the construction of a common European area of higher education, developing into a universal source of goals as well as a matrix serving to assess learning results (that is – competences).