12 to demand priority when the umbrella groups get their acts together and it also provides an opportunity for the Association of Conservation Officers to make an early input into these strategic training affairs. PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS As part of the exercise to interest the professional institution in standards of training and in the relevance of qualifications, English Heritage is holding a series of meetings with their senior staff and elected officers to sensitise the RIBA, RICS, RTPI and ISE to conservation concerns. Three years ago we met with the Chartered Surveyors and, indirectly, the result has been the formation of a Surveyors in Conservation Group and the development of a conservation course at the College of Estate Management at Reading University. Last year, English Heritage and the ACO Chairman, Chris Smith, met Francis Tibbalds and his Director of Education during his presidency of the RTPI and a further set of discussions is due to take place this autumn. As part of this initiative, Roger France of Oxford Polytechnic hosted a day-long workshop for lecturers and heads of planning schools to investigate the level of conservation input into undergraduate and postgraduate planning training with a view to establishing recommendations on appropriate levels. Meanwhile at the RIBA, the outgoing and incoming Presidents have met the English Heritage Commissioners. At the May RIBA Council meeting, a motion raised by me and supported by Russ Craig of Hertfordshire CC set in motion a national review of how best conservation and the Institute can be aligned. Next on the target list is the Institution of Structural Engineers. COLLEGE TRAINING At the start of this article I referred to the effects that government policy will have on the scope and quality of vocational training in colleges. On funding, the argument goes like this: if you decide to train as an architect, the government, through local authority education grant subsidies, picks up the bill for six years of education whereas an equally talented graduate who signs up for ICI as a 6th former is sponsored throughout his or her training by the private sector. Given a basic right to undergraduate education, the government is now beginning to query why student architects and planners should not be subsidised by public and privatepractices if they go on to postgraduate and vocational professional status. Furthermore, it suggests that there may be scope for more in-service training in order to keep academic costs down. What ever next? Then there's the EEC. As most readers will know, there are already agreements in place for freedom of labour movement throughout the Economic Community by 1992. Discussions are now well advanced on the issue of standardising European vocational qualifications for architects but there are stumbling blocks. For example, by British standards architects in southern and eastern Europe, are really architect/engineers. Town and country planners by our standards do not generally exist and this role in local authorities is taken on by "urbanises" and architects. So there is pressure on our government to align itself in some way _with the generality of European trammg. Academic establishments are in a state of shock. First of all polytechnics are untied from local authority spending and have to become business enterprises and then universities begin to receive grant aid on the basis of performance. In reality this means that each school of planning, architecture and surveying will have to compete with all the others on price and on the quality of training and research. Cynically, the more attractive the course, the more students attend, the more staff carry out research, the more successful the establishment and the more rewards are reaped. There is thus an opportunity to suggest from the "industry" side that conservation could be taught as a major selling point of the curriculum. Some bodies are pushing for the German four year training programme for architects to be adopted here, but the RIBA, ARCUK and the academic establishment seem to be resisting successfully this proposal to shorten courses by two years. However, there is a sniff of compromise in the wind with the odd theoretical paper floating about suggesting that architectural training could be thinned out or spread in two directions: first of all into the secondary curriculum at sixth form level, as environmental studies as a form of pre-diploma course, and secondly, by in-service training. The latter would mean students completing a three year undergraduate course and then joining a practice on a fulltime basis. The practice would then undertake to send the student to college for perhaps one third of his work time annually and to pay the fees and expenses for this operation. Full qualification as an architect would then take place over a longer gestation period than at present. For planners, the same principles apply. There is too much already to "stuff" into the core curriculum, and so there will be moves to spread the training loads more evenly across the early years of any career, provided that there is support from the employers. TRAINING AND ACO I hope you will be able to see from my lengthy description of educational affairs that there are several important opportunities for the Association of Conservation Officers to become involved in vocational training. There are direct ways to put conservation training needs on the map through the sensitivity of professional institutions, through lead industry bodies and through COTAC. Also, as higher education changes shape there will be further opportunities to contribute to curriculum and syllabus development: in the secondary curriculum in schools, in specialist units at undergraduate level, in option programmes at postgraduate level and through continuing professional development initiatives and open learning throughou_t careers. This opportunity needs to be grasped and I commend this challenge for your consideration. ORGANISATIONS AND ADDRESSES National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) 222 Euston Road, London NWl 2BZ, 01-387 9898. Centre for Educational Resources for the Construction Industry (CERCI) The Building Centre, 26 Store Street, London WClE 7BT, 01-636 1802. Council for Occupational Standards and Qualifications in Environmental Conservation (COSQUEC) c/o ECOTEC Research and Consulting Ltd, 28-34 Albert Street, Birmingham B4 7UD, 021-616 1010. Conference on Training in Architectural Conservation (COT AC) c/o The Directing Architect, English Heritage, 25 Savile Row, London WlX 2BT, 01-734 6010. John Fidler DipArch MAArch MA conservation. AADiplconservation Rf BA FRSA is a Superintending Architect with English Heritage. CONTEXT23
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