Tuition fees and the future of fieldwork

[troll]

Thankyou to all for your responses on this.In my humble opinion, the future of fieldwork in the UK will depend upon a number of factors.One of the most important has to be the stage that we set for potential undergrads and the newly graduated.I don`t feel that we should continue to expect young people who invest in three or four years of full-time study (with all the hideousness that goes with it!) to stick around in an increasingly unprofessional environment that actively uses them as labourers.In just about every other flavour of the discipline, remmuneration (arguably) reflects the role and competence of the individual (quite funny when one reads this back).In Field Archaeology, a digger is a digger is a digger .Some units are not particularly interested in whether an individual has one week or ten years experience just so long as the site is excavated on time. Experienced field archaeologists as you well know, have to master a range of skills and apply them efficiently within a tight time constraint.Day in-day out.Eventually, those of us who can stomach the pitiful conditions end up with a skill-set that took years to accumulate.Field Archaeologists will only ever be as good as the people they work alongside.There is a steadily increasing number of old hands leaving the profession and taking all that experience with them.I`m afraid that people can only stomach conditions for so long before they walk away.My point is that in a commercial environment, the Field Archaeologist loses out at every turn.Building site labourers earn stacks more than they do.Usually, they live together in rented accommodation on short-term contracts.Some have never seen a contract.Field Archs are consistantly on the wrong end of illegal/incompetant Health and Safety practises, poor reflections of welfare facilities and almost universally, on the wrong end of hideously incompetant project designs/method statements.In all weathers.Just what is it that the profession expects Field Archaeologists to be grateful for? There are fieldies out there with astonishing levels of insight, competence and motivation.Usually, there is a graduate or two in tow who benefit from this.Often, there are a number of MIFAs who would be lost without them too.I think the profession at large should make it`s mind up.Do we excavate sites with one degree holder and hoards of volunteers and just make it up as we go along or, do we strive towards the recognition of a professional and multi-skilled workforce? Field Archaeology is a specialism.I`m not remotely interested in being called a specialist.I`m a field archaeologist.Tiz what I do.Does`nt make me disposable labour.Does`nt make me the bottom of the IFA pile.The data retrieval phase is the most important stage in the process.Throw muppets at it and you get carnage.Scene of Crime Officers are valued as such.As an archaeologist, my job is just as complex, requires a broad range of skills and-unlike the Policemans job-my scene of crime has been out in the rain or covered in sh*t for thousands of years.Value the field workforce.It`s older, experienced hands are on the way out and attracting new graduates will be pointless when there`s no-one there to train them.

..knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity..(imam ghazali,ayyuhal-walad)