Abstract:

The incompatibility between competences and the labour market has become an increasing concern in the majority of the European Union’s member states. As a member of the European community, Romania is preoccupied with the long-term compatibility between the supply of competences and the demand on the labour market. The Romanian state universities have three educational cycles (Bachelor, Master, PhD) and are in accordance the European Union’s policy regarding higher education (tertiary) as a result of the adherence to a series of benchmark documents that coordinate this broad process (Sorbonne,1998; Bologna, 1999; Prague, 2001; Berlin, 2003; Bergen, 2005; London, 2007).
The goal of the present study is to identify the employers’ opinion regarding the set of competences that graduates should hold in the field of economic analysis and valuation of business and assets (EAV). The result of this exploratory research on the opinions of the educational process’ beneficiaries (employers) will represent the fundament of improvement brought to the university curriculum for master programs.
The study is organised in five sections. The first part presents the Romanian educational environment in universities compared to the European environment. Through historical research based on the literature combined with normative and regulatory aspects, it establishes the main moments in the evolution of the Romanian higher education towards the European trend. Section 2 describes the Romanian environment of economic education designed for EAV, using qualitative research. By defining the relationship between the supply of competences and the demand on the labour market (Section 3) we begin the exploratory research that has the main objective to assess the employers’ opinion concerning the abilities, values and attitudes that a master’s degree graduate should hold. Thus, the research questions are:
Q1: The development and implementation of the curriculum must be based on specific and general competences.
Q2: The employers consider the general / specific competences acquired by higher education graduates as optimal;
Q3: Employers recruit graduates based on specific and general competences.
Q4: Continuous professional training is a concept accepted by employers.
The research questions are tested through an empirical approach based on a questionnaire (Section 4). The research is based on a national representative sample, as several development regions within the country are part of the questionnaire. It captures the point of view of 1,000 organisational actors, probabilistically selected, concerning the subject of economic analysis and valuation of assets and businesses (officials of consultancy companies and companies that are present in various fields of production and services). The last part of the study concludes on the requirements of the labour market in the field of EAV as it brings out the items that must be taken into account when developing the competences system of the master program in this field.
The present study attests to the need of modernization with respect to the education and training systems by creating a connection between education, training and employment.

Keywords:

Human Resources, Competitively, Higher Education, Romania.