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+--- Thread: Diggers Time? (/showthread.php?tid=2174)
Diggers Time? - troll - 23rd April 2006
Smacks of an attempt to belittle the qualifications required to work as a professional archaeologist.Let me guess.....qualified archaeologists are a pain in the arse....lets populate the units with NVQ people-after all, labourers are labourers right? NVQs are useful gauges of an individuals practical abilities.They are not and will never be degrees.BA or MA.A workforce populated by NVQ workers would obviously be a cheaper option.Make your mind up industry-do you want professional qualified archaeologists or a blind but skilled labouring workforce?
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
Diggers Time? - Dave-Bonner - 23rd April 2006
Quote:quote:Originally posted by troll
Smacks of an attempt to belittle the qualifications required to work as a professional archaeologist.Let me guess.....qualified archaeologists are a pain in the arse....lets populate the units with NVQ people-after all, labourers are labourers right? NVQs are useful gauges of an individuals practical abilities.They are not and will never be degrees.BA or MA.A workforce populated by NVQ workers would obviously be a cheaper option.Make your mind up industry-do you want professional qualified archaeologists or a blind but skilled labouring workforce?
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
I think that is a partial belittlement of skilled field archaeologists in itself. It is a skilled job and cannot be undermined by reducing the qualifications required. Ultimately, if you don't have the applied experience you will not be as good as someone who does, and if you do then you should be able to earn a higher wage that someone who doesn't.
I would like to make the point that I do not percieve the qualifications exhibited throughout the profession as a true reflection of the skills present or required. As was said, the requirements are different for different jobs. If someone wanted to enter the profession as a Grade1 and did not intend to rise about Supervisor level, for instance (an approach some people have taken!), throughout their career then they could adequately achive this and be as skilled without the requirement to do a degree. THE REASON BEING, A DEGREE DOES NOT TEACH YOU HOW TO DIG! They may well benefit from a doing a degree, for instance through aspects of theory, or understanding of applications for scientific analysise/techniques etc. However, that lack of a degree would be a reflection of the lack of availability of an appropriate qualification to they're job description (and a lot of that CAN be picked up on route - chat to a specialist).
As it stands, many university departments would not be in a position to teach professional field archaeology to an appropriate level, due to the lack of input from field archies in those academic departments (not to say it doesn't exist, merely that it is restricted in comparison to academic orientated staff in universities). Where are the practical/methodological archaeologists in universities - they're there but they're doing other stuff (maybe its a result of universities being pushed more and more into the cut and thrust of business justification and financially sound research? Someone else can answer that one).
On the other hand I agree that NVQs etc are not comparable - but thats because they are designed to fulfill a completely different role. We do not have a current qualification which teaches field archaeology, do we? And if there was one, would there be a significant drop-off in university applications for archaeology, if it was marketed appropriately?
Gizza job!!!!! ....please!!!!!
Diggers Time? - BAJR Host - 23rd April 2006
personally (as a person without a degree) I would love to have qualifications that reflected my skills AND did not mean that I had to stop work to take a degree. I ama practical archaeologist, a surveyor, a digger a draughtsman... I do not learn that in a BA or an MA - and I would be equal to any if I had an NVQ L5 in Field Survey.
Not a cheaper option, more a recognition of how people learn the skill and how to reward those that do. An MA in archaeology does not help you tender for a contract project nor give you the ability to survey on a moorland with few recognisable features. HOwever an MA in conservation science will be more useful to a person going into Conservation, an MA in Near Eastern Archaeology will help someone working in that area of study (though it does not give them the ability to dig - a few weeks uni digging does not really count)
Horses for courses Troll - Horses for Courses.
Another day another WSI?
Diggers Time? - troll - 23rd April 2006
By the same scale then, are we to expect an announcement from the IFA very soon requiring all MIFAs to undertake NVQs? By your yardstick sir, this would be a better gauge of an individuals practical ability.
..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)
Diggers Time? - BAJR Host - 23rd April 2006
I would expect a person to be competent to do the work. However that yardstick is achieved is up to the person employing that employee to do the work...
If you want to employ a person with a degree in Middle Eastern Archaeology and 6 years field experience.. or if you want to employ a person with 6 years experience and an NVQ in contract management - (to be a Project Officer) then that?s up to you. you could even employ someone who just had the experience ... as long as the person can do the job.
The 'nice' thing about CPDs and NVQs is that you are already doing it... every bit of work you do is learning... so... why not get a qualification for learning? This once again has nothing to do with the IFA apart from the FACT that they are actually making it happen.
Another day another WSI?
Diggers Time? - the invisible man - 23rd April 2006
I remember the days when it was called a CV.
We owe the dead nothing but the truth.
Diggers Time? - Dave-Bonner - 23rd April 2006
Quote:quote:Originally posted by BAJR Host
I would expect a person to be competent to do the work. However that yardstick is achieved is up to the person employing that employee to do the work...
If you want to employ a person with a degree in Middle Eastern Archaeology and 6 years field experience.. or if you want to employ a person with 6 years experience and an NVQ in contract management - (to be a Project Officer) then that?s up to you. you could even employ someone who just had the experience ... as long as the person can do the job.
The 'nice' thing about CPDs and NVQs is that you are already doing it... every bit of work you do is learning... so... why not get a qualification for learning? This once again has nothing to do with the IFA apart from the FACT that they are actually making it happen.
Another day another WSI?
.....tell it how it is! Or maybe how it should be!
Gizza job!!!!! ....please!!!!!