BAJR follow-up to Petition

[beamo]

Some contracting units have already started down this line. Wessex Archaeology take one graduate each year from Southampton University and employ them for 6 months as a Site Assistant (on full SA pay). If they want to stay on after that, and they have been found to have developed the right skills, then they are made a full-time member of staff.

Of course this will always lead to claims that a more experienced digger has been denied a job, and that 'the unskilled graduate' is being paid the same as the more experienced diggers, but nothing in life is ever perfect.


Beamo

[1man1desk]

Posted by Beamo:

quoteome of us are saying that the actual degree does not equip people to carry out the job in the field without extensive further training

I think this is referring to my previous post, and it's not quite what I meant, so I had better clarify.

We mustn't get carried away with the idea that, because our graduates aren't fully up to a professional job straight from uni, that they are therefore less well trained than those in other professions. In my company for instance, all new graduate employees (several hundred a year, in several different professions; the biggest group are civil engineers) are classified as 'Assistant Professionals' and are enrolled on a 3-year Graduate Development Programme. Only at the end of that training programme are they promoted to full 'Professional' status, and even that isn't automatic. Before they reach Chartered status, they are likely to have worked an average of another 10 years, and many never reach that status.

A programme like that would be the envy of most archaeologists, but what it indicates is the acceptance across the professions that no new graduate is qualified to do a fully professional job straight from uni - and archaeologists are no different in that. We should bear this in mind when we compare archaeologists' starting pay with average graduate salaries.

There is some doubt (and debate) as to whether site workers ('diggers', 'site technicians', call them what you will) in archaeology need a degree. My personal view is that they don't, but it is useful, and it is essential for those (most?) who want to go on to supervisory jobs and then off up the ladder.

What is also true is that no-one should go straight into those supervisory jobs from uni, without further site experience and training at the 'digger' level. That would, ideally, be structured through a proper CPD programme, supported by the employers and regulated by (for instance) the IFA.


1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[BAJR Host]

Can everyone give a list/names of Unis, Colleges and Contracting Units that are going/have gone down this line?

I would very much like to talk to them.


"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

[m300572]

"M300572 said correct me if this is b*ll*cks. So here goes

a salary of 22,000 results from the calculations not 21k.

they than said "plus the income tax and NI costs to the employee a digger would cost around £130" this therefore equates to about another 8k and thus on these figures a salary of 28.4k. This about double the current level.

The overhead for employing somebody is about double the salary.
"

The 21 k was from the median salary from an earlier post, the 22k would arrive from 220 days at £100 per day.

Is the overhead double the salary on top of salary(ie it costs £300 to employ someone on £100) or is it just double the salary (£200 per day to give someone £100 take home)?

[ecmgardner]

Can everyone give a list/names of Unis, Colleges and Contracting Units that are going/have gone down this line?

Edinburgh Uni used to stipulate each student did 6 weeks fieldwork over the 4 years, the idea being you accrue 6 months practical experience by the time you graduate. (I graduated 2001 so have no idea if this is still the case.) The first 6 weeks was in the form of a Uni run fieldschool where older students with more experience acted as supervisors...

Maybe chartered status is a good idea. I haven't been out in the field for coming up for two and a half years now, I'm a sidelined archaeologist... never underestimate the drawing office, we spend most of our time sorting out your mess ups - please remember if you're surveying in a site, lamposts are not shown on maps and it's not going to help to locate a trench no matter how many measurements you take ;o)

[BAJR Host]

A ECM you are so right.... practical training in several aspects wouold be handy for everyo0ne (back to the old concept of understanding the basis of photography, drawing, illustration, sampling etc... to better understand what the crew in the office will do with the data) I had big arguements with one bloke who put a single coordinate on a plan... sadly the idea of roating 360 degs around a fixed point had not occured (a north arrow would have helped)

A broad training and a specific skill base, which would be verifiable...

I will soon put up the Skills Passport as an online sample (complete with pageflip technology!) for folk to view...

we need the skills, we need them verified, we need them to mean a career progression.

I hear that some companies (down south ish) operate a training programme with sheets to be filled in, skills learned etc... I would be interested to hear from any Trainnees who have undergone this process to hear how they did - and what they felt they learned.


"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu