The sector of dental technicians represents about 42.000 dental laboratories in Europe, with 210.00 employees. The majority are Small and Medium- sized Enterprises (SME's). Being part of the health care industry the sector has to be able to guarantee quality and safety at affordable prices.

Currently, it is not possible to evaluate and compare the knowledge and quality level of dental technicians from different countries. Every member state has its own educational system that leads to the member state's specific diploma. The ways to obtain these and the requirements to fulfill are completely different from country to country. This represents a barrier to labour mobility, harmonisation of European health legislation and the dialogue between dental technicians throughout Europe.

Regulators in each member country who need to ensure professional technicians have the relevant knowledge and competence to work as dental technicians need a way to assess and approve technicians applying for work from European and non EU-countries. Therefore General Occupational Standards are to be developed in order to overcome this situation. It will also map out the different education systems throughout Europe today.

Occupational Standards describe what needs to happen in the workplace.

They are statements of competence and are written to measure performance outcomes. Generally, competence can be defined as the ability to apply knowledge, understanding and skills in performing to the standards required to the employment.

Generic occupational standards (GOS) on European level may be used in the future to establish the common education and training needs for dental technicians in all participating countries. The work will also contribute to broader developments in the dental technology where the profession is under pressure to develop into new areas of work to meet the demands of emerging technology and life long learning.

The concept of a European-wide accepted diploma would guarantee the equivalence of vocational training in Europe. This means that after the standards are accepted and integrated in the vocational training programmes in Europe all dental technicians will benefit from the exchange of experience and best practice. Furthermore the acceptance of the diploma will allow labour flexibility, stimulate the exchanges of students and the integration of knowledge obtained abroad, the harmonisation of European health legislation and an even broader dialogue of dental technicians Europe - wide.

The standards can be used by the Industry. For manufacturing instructions. CEN could use the Standards as a base to develop technical standards for medical devices.

HOW WERE OCCUPATIONAL STANDARDS
DEVELOPED IN THE UK?

In the UK, occupational standards are increasingly used to develop services, plan workforces, guide practice and the management of people, and form the basis of education, training and qualifications.

These occupational standards for dental technology were developed in the UK using a series of workshops in both 2002 and 2003. The workshops brought together people who work in dental technology - in private laboratories and hospitals - as well as those who educate and train dental technologists. The occupational standards have been available in the UK since 2003 and have been shared with others beyond the UK.

In preparation for this development work, the UK occupational standards were reviewed in late 2005 and rationalised by getting rid of any overlaps and wording that was specific to the UK context. For the start of this project we are calling the standards 'Draft General Occupational Standards" as they need to be checked out with and improved for use across Europe.