Training

[drpeterwardle]

How much on the job training should a new graduate be given as part of their employment package. By training I mean structured learning by what ever delivery method used. I donot mean training such as the find go in the finds tray or you use a shovel like this.

An hour a week, an hour a day, a day a week or what?

Can there be an expectation of learning in their own time?

Peter

[BAJR Host]

I guess one of the troubles is the ammount of investment in an individual ... and you must recieve some sort of return (you would not be a charity!!) therefor if you invest a certain ammount of time they do in a way become indentured servants... which aint any good either.... hmmmm .. will have to drink on that one... er I mean think!!
David

[drpeterwardle]

David,

Thanks for that.

I find the idea of a binding apprenticeship to a master, an indenture, abhorrent but ........

Apprenticeships, learning a trade for an agreed period, were normally followed by a job for life until very recently. Some apprenticeships were not transferrable eg the Post Office which resulted in indenture until privatisation of the telecoms industry came along.

Surely archaeology is not a skilled handicraft, a "manual" art or craft, even on site some brain power is needed. Surely the training for a new graduate should be more akin to training in law or accountancy than brick laying or painting and decorating.

Peter

[roywhiting]

The problem with training is that units expect to have people working for them that are able at the job and can be a useful member of the team when carrying out evaluations, excavations etc. These projects are done in a private sector environment and to fairly tight budgets and deadlines etc. Rare indeed are the occasions when you have the time or the money to provide structured training and tuition to a fresh graduate with virtually zero experience. Units of a small to medium size generally require staff to do evaluations, watching briefs with the occasional small excavation thrown in. They need people to hit the ground running so to speak. In this situation training really has to be done on the job "hold the shovel this way, finds in here, draw the section like this". Proper "structured" training seems to me to be more easily undertaken by the mega units like Oxford and Wessex that have large projects on with the requisite budgets and site staff which enable them to do the job but "carry" the trainees until they reach a specific standard. To a small unit the graduates can be nothing but a distraction and waste of time on a tightly budgeted small project. Harsh I know, but true.

[drpeterwardle]

To an extent I agree with this - training is a difficult issue - in any job there will be a lot of informal training for somebody new to the situation.

But are we saying that only the small number of mega units can offer such taining and thus new graduates have no choice but to work for OAU, Wessex, Molas etc. Similarly can these organisations be expected to invest in people before they move off to other smaller/medium sized companies.

To use the legal analogy all lawyers have their juniors ie people not yet qualified. Why are we that different? Is it the level of fees and thus we do not have the money to invest in people.

Peter

[the invisible man]

Yes. it seems that archaeology is grossly under-valued, hence low salaries, poor conditions and lack of training. In one sense you are not alone - the trainee or gopher (how I started) has vanished from architecture, for example, in part due to the ending of the mandatory fee-scale system. Architects now have to tender for work, the cheapest invariably wins and, surprise surprise, jobs get under-resourced and no-one can afford to train up youngsters. You cannot get good technicians for love nor money any more and offices are full of contract South Africans and Aussies.

You don't have to indenture or enslave fresh talent. When it was commonplace to employ a trainee, sure, he/she is likely to push off to widen their experience (and to get more money). But you benefit from someone else's investment by taking on someone at an equivalent stage, trained up elsewhere.

I do believe that archaeology is under-valued across the board, as I say. Also, the point has been raised a couple of times before, but is the competitive commercial and basically artificial system we have the best way to carry out archaeology anyway?

[drpeterwardle]

In terms of training and to an extent pay I think things are much better under a commercial system. Only at the end of MSC was training on the aggenda except of the most rudimentary sort and was virtually unheard of under the other funding regimes (with a few exceptions and the Oxford in service course).

Peter

[Oxbeast]

I hope that roywhiting is wrong.

I just finsihed my Masters' and am about to start work with a relatively small unit. I've done plenty of fieldwork before, but all research digs/survey for universities. I expect to hit the ground running, and have an intense few weeks. I can learn fast, but I'm probably not up to the intricacies of fiendish urban deposits quite yet. i didn't join one of the superunits becuse they didn't want to hire me (though I expect this to change soon). In my quite recent experience at two major universities, you don't get to learn much about fieldwork if you don't make it happen. Its quite possible to do plenty of the stuff, and if you don't ask the right people the right questions, you're never going to understand whats really going on.

[roywhiting]

Oxbeast,

My contribution was a general comment. Of course the abilities and speed of learning curves of graduates vary from individual to individual, and joining a smaller unit might not be a disadvantage to an inexperienced digger. Thinking about it more, I suppose smaller units and projects might be more beneficial for the trainee in that they're not going to get lost amongst a mass of site staff. They will be working amongst a smaller team, which might be more conducive to learning. You might be put in a small team of highly experienced people, amongst whom you can learn at a brisk pace. I'd still maintain that a structured tuition programme for a graduate would be hard to achieve with a small unit. Such opportunities do arrive occasionally when things become quiet in the field - "down time". But under these circumstances, smaller units usually have to lay off field staff, and those laid off are likely to be the less experienced members.

[Oxbeast]

Good points, roywhiting. I'm not sure about the whole notion of a structured graduate programme. This sounds like an investment bank. In my experience, one of the best ways to learn things is to watch people who know what they're doing, and ask some questions. If you can get them in the pub, and get them to tell some stories about how you dig a barrow/mysterious ditch/urban thing, then all the better. To a very great extent, training, i.e. acquiring skills, should primarily be your own responsibility, just like it is in University.

Though, with a big unit, you'd be rotated through different sites more, and gain an understanding of different geologies/periods/regions/pubs faster.