On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, Patricia Reynolds wrote:
> * Is there a Canadian Museums Association.

     Yes, the Canadian Museums Association in Ottawa.

> * Is there a national body in Canada which is concerned with
>   the training of museum staff?

The CMA has a Human Resource Development Committee led by staff member
Diana Thompson.


> * Does Canada have a system of competence-based qualifications
>   which are taken in the workplace, comparable to the British
>   National Vocational Qualifications and Scotish Vocational
>   Qualifications?  Do museums use this?  Or is it limited to
>   craft industries, secretarial skills, and so on?
>


No, Canada has not followed the National Vocational Qualifications system
of England and Scotland for museum work for a variety of complicated
reasons not the least of which is that our government has not initiated
such a Vocational Qualifications system yet or at least not in quite
the same form.

  We have studied the British museum
system extensively, however, over the last decaade.  The CMA with the
support of the Federal Department in charge of labour and training
matters, Human Resources Canada, has been involved in a two phase study
of human resource development issues and pilot projects for the museum
field.

The first phase resulted in a publication which can be acquired from the
CMA in Ottawa. The second phase is now in progress and is zeroing in  on
a number of areas: competencies for museum work, learning organization
development, career planning for the learning individual (my
project).  The competencies project is under the direction of
Lois Irvince, Head of the Human Resource Development Strategy
Committee. She is based in Calgary and can be reached through
Diana Thompson at the CMA. The work of this project has some way to go
and certain things such as operational framework for competencies have
yet to be worked out. We have been spedning our time trying to get a
framework for museum competency which is beyond job skills and which
includes knowledge areas, museological and otherwise.

I have been a member of the CMA's Human Resource Strategy Committee since
its start and would be happy to answer any questions.

Essentially, Canada is taking a different path than the UK re: museum
qualifications, given a different museum training environment and the
variety of museum work and museum workplaces. We are also keen to have
our system incorporate evolving challenges of the future of museum work
and not to reflect the status quo.

Lynne Teather,
Assoc. Prof., Museum Studies Program,
Univ. of Toronto,
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