4th September 2012, 04:28 PM
Obvious myself and UO1 disagree on the basic purpose of a university and I don't think that repeated head banging by either of this is going to change our minds.
I think Universities need to make it clearer that a basic UG doesn't make you instantly employable as a field archaeologist- in fact I can think of very few basic degrees that do this- the vast majority of profession one enters require some form of additional training whether via post-graduate courses or formalised work experience (paid for either via the tax payer or through the profession). The trouble is funding- I think the idea of industrial placement courses or post graduate courses (Masters in Professional Archaeology or some such) are a really good idea, but I'm not sure if they'd be financially sustainable over the long term. It's not just a case of funding the teaching/training, but providing the funding for students living costs etc. Regrettably I highly doubt bodies like AHRC (who are the only HE Funding Body who could conceivably fund this kind of thing) would support it, as it would be seen as vocational rather than research. Equally, commercial archaeology units (even the big boys) have nowhere near the income that say big management or financial companies do who fund their own graduate staff training schemes.
One additional problem I'd flag up (because there aren't enough already) is that it is increasingly hard for students to get pre-University excavation experience, particularly in a commercial context. When I started at University 20+ years ago, I think the majority of those in my year had had some digging experience, I think I'd had about four or five months worth (with a mixture of commercial units and big research digs) and others had similar quantities. But that was in the day when you would get paid to dig and provided with free accomodation- I remember getting ?50-60 a week and a room on my first ever dig despite having never been on site before. However, it is now increasingly difficult to find opportunities to dig without shelling out at least the same amount and often much more. Some can afford that- but many can't and many don't live in parts of the country where there are such opportunities. Because the big funding bodies don't fund large research digs on the whole, the whole financial model has changed in the last 20 years- it's all about recouping costs rather than spending huge research grants. This limits the amount of field archaeology experiences available pre and during University. Of course things may be different for UO1 down in Lincolnshire, but that's certainly the current situation up here in the North-East
cheers
David
I think Universities need to make it clearer that a basic UG doesn't make you instantly employable as a field archaeologist- in fact I can think of very few basic degrees that do this- the vast majority of profession one enters require some form of additional training whether via post-graduate courses or formalised work experience (paid for either via the tax payer or through the profession). The trouble is funding- I think the idea of industrial placement courses or post graduate courses (Masters in Professional Archaeology or some such) are a really good idea, but I'm not sure if they'd be financially sustainable over the long term. It's not just a case of funding the teaching/training, but providing the funding for students living costs etc. Regrettably I highly doubt bodies like AHRC (who are the only HE Funding Body who could conceivably fund this kind of thing) would support it, as it would be seen as vocational rather than research. Equally, commercial archaeology units (even the big boys) have nowhere near the income that say big management or financial companies do who fund their own graduate staff training schemes.
One additional problem I'd flag up (because there aren't enough already) is that it is increasingly hard for students to get pre-University excavation experience, particularly in a commercial context. When I started at University 20+ years ago, I think the majority of those in my year had had some digging experience, I think I'd had about four or five months worth (with a mixture of commercial units and big research digs) and others had similar quantities. But that was in the day when you would get paid to dig and provided with free accomodation- I remember getting ?50-60 a week and a room on my first ever dig despite having never been on site before. However, it is now increasingly difficult to find opportunities to dig without shelling out at least the same amount and often much more. Some can afford that- but many can't and many don't live in parts of the country where there are such opportunities. Because the big funding bodies don't fund large research digs on the whole, the whole financial model has changed in the last 20 years- it's all about recouping costs rather than spending huge research grants. This limits the amount of field archaeology experiences available pre and during University. Of course things may be different for UO1 down in Lincolnshire, but that's certainly the current situation up here in the North-East
cheers
David
