16th November 2005, 04:51 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by 1man1desk
Kevin Wooldridge's suggestion is interesting, but it might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Perhaps we could consider a middle way approach. Most other professions divide into two categories:
The first group need a degree, and usually also need further professional qualifications obtained through CPD schemes, often leading to Chartered status. The second group usually do have qualifications, but often not at degree level.
- 'Professional staff' - i.e. those who want to go on to more senior management/academic roles
- 'Technical staff' - i.e. those who don't want to go on to those roles because they are further away from the actual job (e.g. CAD technicians, surveyors, etc. etc.)
I don't want to appear to undermine confidence in our education system, but what possible qualification does a degree in archaeology confer on anyone to manage an archaeological project/unit? Plenty of archaeology managers out there, even in this day and age, without degrees in archaeology....
It seems to me that, even allowing for most positive view of be this discussion to date, most archaeology graduates come into the profession with at most a tabula rasa. There is even the hint of a suggestion that some archaeology courses provide graduates with a 'negative' employment potential, ill-equiping them for the reality of the job.
Surely archaeology is a profession where everyone should stand an equal chance of progression dependent upon opportunity and proven ability. Yes, a degree is one ingredient of that, but as no archaeology degree in the UK provides a totally vocational course, it is not and should not be the final arbiter. By the time that most people start getting into management positions in this job anyway they are as far removed in years from their degree course as undergraduates are from an 11+ exam.
1man 1desk appears to advocate the 'deckchair syndrome' of early 20th century archaeology where having a degree meant you got to sit down and order the oiks around and no degree meant you pushed a wheelbarrow, rather in the manner that the BM shabbily treated Basil Brown at Sutton Hoo in the late 30's. Surely no-one wants to see those days bought back.
I do worry sometimes that the modern child of archaeology seems a tad more elitist than they used to be.