CPAs in Poland?

A CPA is a big deal in the US in terms of prestige and earnings. Is there any equivalent in Poland? It seems most everybody and his wife can be a księgowy or księgowa, and that doesn't really impress anyone.

Another job difference is that of nurse. In the a US a RN has a higher education, good earnigns and fair prestige. Am I correct in assuming that in Poland a pielęgniarka is undererducated, undervalued prestigewise and undepaid to boot?

It might help people if you explained what a CPA was, Pol3. Chartered Professional Accountant or Certified Professional Accountant?

Also, isn't a nurse underpaid the world over? They are certainly underpaid in Britain and I know because my dad is a nurse teacher and we sometimes discussed it on our various walks.

In the US it is Certified Public Accountant. I was essentially comparing the US and Poland, not taking other countires into account. Does nursing in the UK require a bachelor's degree?

I understand that in Poland only a secondary education and a little extra training is requried to be a nurse.

Look in Poland too there are categories of nurses and the earnings and reputation are different.There are nurses with only technical certificates,with bachelors,Masters even PhD.All collectively can be known as nurses but the qualifications do differ widely

Not to work as a registered nurse, no.

The training has changed over the years, but has been a minimum of three years training for many years now. There used to be a "enrolled nurse" course (two years) but this was phased out in the early 1990s. Some of these nurses still exist, but many are approaching retirement; the rest did conversion courses to raise their qualifications to "registered nurse" level.

20 years ago, most nurses were employed by local hospitals on "training contracts" for three years and trained in "schools of nursing". Educationally, their qualification was equivalent to completing the first year of a 3-year degree.

Then the training became a little less practical; the universities took over the training, and the minimum educational qualification was raised to DipHE (diploma of higher education) level, i.e. equivalent to completing two years of a 3-year degree.

From 2012, the diploma-level courses will no longer be offered, so from 2015 onwards, every nurse will still undergo three years training, but will graduate with a bachelor's degree.

The Polish accounting equivalent of CPA is called a Biegly Rewident.

Its a strange organization - after the end of Communism there were only a few thousand of whom hardly any spoke English. They admitted about 10 members over a 6-7 year period (literally) so their prices went sky high and each Biegly was signing off thousands of audits.

Eventually EU integration forced change on them and they are now a pretty good organization with a difficult set of exams. A newly qualified Biegly would get paid 10-15k PLN per month, more in Warsaw. Technically they are as strong as British or US accountants but they lack the commercia/business angle, even if they have come from the Big 4.

What is sad here is that there is no intermediate qualification like Accounting Technicians. So for book-keepers you never really know what you are getting.

CPA in Poland is very unclear, post Communism system that nobody really know how to work - no clear syllabus available, no study materials of supervisory agency that somehow regulate this "mafia style" organization.

There is 11 exams - and nothing comparable to Becker materials for CPA or Kaplan for ACCA.
Passing rate is around 10%-20%, taking into account that most of my friends had between 2-6 attempts to each one it makes statistic even worse.

I know very experienced auditors with both ACCA and CPA qualification that took one of the exams 10 TIME to pass.
Average age of CPA in Poland is surprise, surprise.... 55 years with around 8000 CPAs in ALL country (mostly granted in 90s). No more words needed!

Wow, reminds me of medicine, one of the hardest courses to finish. I didn`t know wanna-be accountants are under such pressure, too.