The IHBC has lodged its concerns and objections to current proposals for the high-level (Level 7) Historic Environment Advisor Apprenticeship submitted by Historic England’s ‘Trailblazer’ Group to the Institute for Apprenticeships (IfA) for approval.
image: IHBC Marsh Award – Learner 2018 winner, Amy Ward, IHBC Affiliate
David McDonald, IHBC President and lead for the IHBC on the Trailblazer Group, said: ‘The IHBC has been keen to promote apprenticeships in the historic environment. They have the potential of attracting a wider range of young people into the sector. Consequently, I was happy to join and devote time to Historic England’s ‘Trailblazer’ Apprenticeship Group.’
‘The group has achieved a great deal in progressing standards for Field Archaeologists and Conservators.’
‘However, in taking forward Historic Environment Advisor Standards, it has, erroneously in my opinion attempted to combine archaeology and building conservation into a single standard. This fails to recognise that there are two distinct but complimentary professions whose values will be diminished by trying to combine them.’
On behalf of the IHBC, Education Secretary Andrew Shepherd and IHBC Chair James Caird have written jointly as follows:
… The [Education] Committee appreciated that the Standard had been significantly amended since its last iteration to take on board some of the comments of the IHBC, but expressed its concern that its basic structure still reflects the flawed concept of attempting to combine two distinct professions, archaeology and historic building conservation into a single standard…
… there has been a reluctance to explore seriously the core and options alternative apparently in part at least due to the IfA’s preferred models, and in part to the lack of diversity in the profiles of actively participating employer across the Group itself… However we have noted from the IfA website that, for example, the Heritage Engineering Technician Standard has 6 separate options. It seems to us that this approach would be quite achievable here….
… based on the data currently available to us we cannot support the L7 Standard at the present time, while we would also request that the IfA recognise our concerns and request that the Historic Environment Trailblazer Group be encouraged to revisit the alternative of a core and options format…
DOWNLOAD the draft proposed Standard
This consultation is now closed but you can find out more on the IfA website
