Marcus Brody Wrote:I know that this is off the main topic of this thread, but I do wonder whether the increased uni fees will result in a return to the situation where a degree is no longer a necessity for working as a digger. After all, it's questionable whether it's sustainable to expect someone to take on debts of ?27,000 in preparation for a job than may only pay ?16k, possibly rising to ?30k after a number of years if they're lucky. Some of the best archaeologists I've worked with don't have degrees, having come into archaeology during the MSP of the 80s. They learned their trade on the job, and it may be that this sort of model becomes more prevalent in the future.

Quote:I do wonder whether the increased uni fees will result in a return to the situation where a degree is no longer a necessity for working as a digger

kevin wooldridge Wrote:ummmm...I can see where your idea is coming from but wonder if the reverse isn't true. In this time of increased student fees and decreasing employment opportunities shouldn't the profession be arguing for a raising of academic standards for new entrants rather than a lowering. I am just thinking that the kind of kick that archaeology needs to get out of the rut of 16k salaries and closer to the national average wage is actually a shortage of available staff and a batch of cash-desperate MA graduates with 50 or 60k debts rather than the piddling 27k that undergrads bring to the table...

Quote:[SIZE=3]Archaeology is a subject with considerable public interest and appeal. Nonetheless, the number of [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]applicants competing for places on UK undergraduate archaeology programmes declined by almost [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]50% in the period from 1996 to 2008. It appears that students (and their parents) became increasingly [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]wary of high costs and the necessity for loans, especially as a career in archaeology is seldom [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]associated with high salaries. This national trend probably impacted the IoA particularly hard because
of the high costs of living in London, so that IoA undergraduate enrolment fell from 245 in 2004/5 to
150 in 2008/9. Furthermore, archaeology is relatively popular with mature students (15% of the
2011/12 undergraduate intake were age 21 or older), with the result that undergraduate recruitment has
been more susceptible to changing rates of mature student participation in HE than would be expected
in many disciplines.

The IoA successfully compensated for falling undergraduate enrolments by expanding its Master?s
provision (see next). Since 2009 there has been a slight recovery in the number of applicants to
undergraduate archaeology programmes and this, coupled with the IoA?s decision to launch a joint
Archaeology and Anthropology degree, resulted in improved undergraduate enrolment (185 in 2011/12).
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]ii) The growth of Master?s training[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]The period from 2002/3 to 2010 saw a 27% increase in the number of Master?s students in UK HE. In [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]the context of both declining undergraduate numbers and its mission to educate future leaders in [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]archaeological research and management, the IoA seized the opportunity presented by this general [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]trend and greatly expanded the range of its own Master?s provision to the point where in 2009/10 its[/SIZE][SIZE=3]18 degree programmes collectively recruited 272 taught Master?s students. Since then Master?s [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]recruitment has declined by circa 5%. The IoA?s mean UGGT ratio over the period 2007/8 to [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]2009/10 was 1.6, which significantly surpassed UCL?s 1:1 target for 2012/13 and is - based on[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]anecdotal evidence - considerably above the average for UK archaeology departments. In absolute [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]terms the IoA undoubtedly has the largest and most diverse Master?s student community anywhere in
the UK and quite possibly in the world.
[/SIZE]

Quote:"The IoA successfully compensated for falling undergraduate enrolments by expanding its Master’s
provision" what does that mean?