Acquisition of professional competences of financial specialist during university studies

Formalusis finansų specialisto profesinių kompetencijų formavimo etapas siejamas su universitetinėmis finansų studijomis, kurių metu įgyjamos veiklai reikalingos kompetencijos. Užsienyje atliekami moksliniai tyrimai leidžia išsamiau analizuoti finansininkų rengimo kokybę bei atitikimą kintantiems rinkos poreikiams. Siame straipsnyje analizuojama, kaip Lietuvos universitetai formuoja finansų studijų specializacijos programas - ekonomikos, vadybos ar apskaitos žinių pagrindu. Finansų specialistų ir rinkos poreikių įvertinimas, formuojant siūlomas finansų studijų programas, kol kas yra nepakankamas. Atlikto tyrimo rezultatai atskleidžia prielaidas studijų programoms modernizuoti, atsižvelgiant į skirtingų poreikių tenkinimą universitetinėse finansų studijose.The required competencies are acquired during the studies of finance at university, so these studies can be treated as the formal phase of finance competencies development. The researches of foreign authors in this field give a possibility to assess the quality of preparation of financial specialists and it's accordance to the market needs in more details. This article analyzes how finance studies' programs are created in Lithuanian universities on the ground of economic, management and accounting knowledge. The assessment of finance specialists and market needs is not taken into consideration properly in the process of finance programs' formation. The results of this research give some assumptions about the modernization of studies programs considering meeting different requirements in university studies. Development of professional competences of financial specialists is subjected to in-depth analysis in works by foreign authors. Different research methods and instruments are applied in an effort to identify the key problems related with the content and quality of professional competences of financial specialists and receive results carrying scientific weight. Meanwhile, Lithuania still lacks thorough analysis of the quantity and quality of the need for the training of financial specialists. Lithuanian universities training specialists of the financial specialisation work in different programmes. Training of financial specialists ensures continuous teaching in the higher level of university education. The abundance of specialisations in the financial profession responds to employers' requirements to specialist activities, however, the duration and form of education should be revised to respond to the needs of employers or specialists of finances. Different ratios of professional skills in educational programmes show that the competences of financial specialists with degrees from different universities may be different in the sense of content. Blocks of financial and optional disciplines remain the key item in the second level of university education. The formal stage of development of professional competences of financial specialists is linked with university studies of finances, which provide competences that are necessary for further work. Based on summarised results of all research, a possibility emerges to develop solutions that could lead to closer parallel between market demands for the competences of financial specialists and financial studies offered by Lithuanian universities. Therefore, it would be useful to revise programmes of financial education considering the recommendations listed below. The demand of professional knowledge for finance specialist is directly dependant on the demand of knowledge competence formed by the activities of financial intemediation companies and business as well as state sectors even more differentiated, thus it is necessary to take into account when organizing the finance studies at universities, This problem is supposed to be easily eliminated by increasing the number of elective disciplines in the programs of finance specialization. In this way the specialist who knows what he need would have a possibility to deepend, but not to broaden his competence in the studies of either bachelor's or master's level