Heritage School, nomination flop certifies embarrassing lack of clarity

Last March 12, a press release from the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism circulated the number of applications for the selection of the eighteen students who will take part in the first cycle of the Heritage School course: four hundred in all. A bit few, if one thinks of how much has been talked about this new institute in recent months, and especially if one thinks of how many precarious people with very high qualifications populate the world of cultural heritage and are therefore inclined to beat every road to find a stable job. But they are far too many when one considers that the birth of the Heritage School has been accompanied by a terrifying lack of clarity: and the fog that has been gathering around this school from the moment it began to be talked about appears, unfortunately, still far from clearing.

At the moment, in the absence of clear indications from the ministry, there is only one tool to rely on to try to understand something: the school’s website. A school which, moreover, officially, as can be read in the statute, is not called “Heritage School,” but “School of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism,” abbreviated “BACT School”: yet, in its communiqués, the ministry continues to call it “Heritage School.” One wonders, therefore, how one can expect clarity from the ministry if, evidently, it has not yet decided what to call it, but this should not stand in the way of continuing to ask numerous questions about the nature of the school, its courses, and the outlets on which its students will be able to rely.

As for the nature of the school, we read in the statutes that “the School has legal personality under private law in the form of a Participation Foundation”: a sort of middle ground between an association and a foundation, and it is united with the latter by the fact that it is non-profit and a private law institution, although public entities may be among its members. In the statute, in the chapter devoted to the founding members, it is stated that “the Founding Member of the School is the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism,” but also that “public and private legal entities which, sharing the aims and pursuing institutional purposes similar or complementary to those of the School, adhere to it by subscribing to its high charter and statute and contribute permanently to the Endowment Fund and to the Management Fund of the School, may also obtain the status of Founding Member.” At the moment, however, it is not known (or at any rate we have not found information) about any other partners besides MiBACT. And it would be interesting if information about this were posted on the website, given that as much as 2.5 million euros are allocated to the Heritage School in the 2018 MiBACT budget. A figure identical to that which is guaranteed each year to the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, or to the commando Tutela Patrimonio Culturale of the Carabinieri, or to the Accademia dei Lincei, and corresponding to about one-tenth of all that will be allocated in 2018 to the Directorate General for Education and Research, and one-sixth of the allocation of the Directorate General for Art and Contemporary Architecture and Urban Peripheries. Read in this way, it almost seems as if the training of the eighteen students will cost one hundred and forty thousand euros each, each year. Nor is it clear whether, alongside this endowment provided by the ministry, there are also other funds guaranteed by possible partners about which at the moment (or based on the information we were able to find) nothing is known. In addition, the “transparent administration” section appears incomplete, since, for example, the curricula of all the members of the management board and all the members of the scientific council are missing: an unacceptable lack, especially considering that the call for the selection of students has not only already been launched, but has already closed, since the deadline for submitting applications fell on March 8.

The Collegio Romano, headquarters of MiBACT

And about the call for applications and what the trainees will do: there are several points to be clarified here as well. The announcement specifies that the course is divided into a common module for all trainees lasting 8 months, six specialized modules lasting 4 months, and an internship period (i.e., apprenticeship, and one wonders why the term in Italian was not chosen) lasting 12 months. As far as the common modules are concerned, the school lists the disciplines that students will cover (historical, economic and managerial, legal and administrative, geological and environmental, curatorial-museological and conservation, communication, mathematical-applicative and technological) but does not go into what individual courses will be taken, nor who will be the lecturers teaching them. Only some meager information is offered on the nature of the modules. The same goes for the specialized modules (of which there are six: cultural heritage protection management, data management archives and databases, data management libraries and databases, museum management and museum centers, territorial development and contemporary art, and tourism policies): again, there are sketchy descriptions that go into little detail. It should also be emphasized that candidates are not allowed a free choice of the specialist module to be undertaken: in the application form they could only indicate a preference, but the choice of specialist module will be made at the sole discretion of the selection committee, based on what the latter deems “most appropriate” for the candidate. To the writer’s knowledge, this would be the first school in Italy to choose its candidate’s path (when it should be the other way around).

And again, about the so-called internship: not only is it not yet known what students will study during the training courses, but it is not even known where they will go to work during the 12-month internship. In the announcement, in fact, it says that the internship period is “to be carried out at public or private entities operating in the cultural heritage or tourism sectors,” while on the dedicated page on the BACT School’s website, private entities are not mentioned, since it says that the “internship period, aimed at the completion of the student’s training, is carried out at one of the nodes of the network of the administration of heritage and cultural activities and tourism on the national territory, in order to develop the skills necessary for the management and executive functions of the student through direct experience within structures operating in the protection, management, enhancement and promotion of cultural heritage and activities and tourism.” And in fact it makes much more sense for the trainees to work in public facilities, since they are specially trained so that they develop, the School’s website further states, “the skills necessary for managerial and executive functions within structures operating in the protection, management, enhancement and promotion of cultural heritage and activities and tourism.” Of course, it is then unclear whether following this internship period there will be the possibility of employment in the ranks of the ministry: if not, the risk is to have (again) eighteen hyper-specialized professionals who will find themselves in possession of an additional qualification that, one imagines, will be of no use to them, since it will come at the end of an extremely specific path (and one also imagines that the candidates at the BACT School aspire to a career in state agencies: otherwise, in all likelihood, they would have opted for other paths of study and work).

Finally, the unspecified International School of Cultural Heritage, an “18-month advanced training course reserved for foreign students in order to develop historical and artistic skills in the protection, management and enhancement of cultural heritage,” mentioned on several pages of the School’s website, deserves a final note. The objective, the statute states, is to “enhance Italy’s international role and the uniqueness of its educational and research model in the field of historical, historical-artistic skills and the protection, management and valorization of cultural heritage.” Here, too, information is lacking: even, on the page dedicated to the training programs (which, moreover, is available only in Italian: a good move, if one aspires to speak to an international audience) it is specified that “the description of the educational programming will be available soon.” However, there is some information on the page that contains the course description: in particular, we read that “theInternational School of Cultural Heritage is a course aimed exclusively at foreign students, selected as a result of bilateral agreements between Italy and a foreign country or between the School and a foreign institution.” Bilateral agreements between Italy and a foreign country? Which foreign country? Between the School and a foreign entity? Which foreign entity? And again: it says that the School “aims to provide specialized curatorial skills.” But isn’t it written in the statute that the purpose is the (much broader and more general) purpose of “developing art historical skills and the protection, management and enhancement of cultural heritage”? It is true that the first international course will be activated in 2019, but this total lack of clarity, in addition to the contradictions that emerge from the pages of the website, is frankly embarrassing.

Ultimately, at the moment it is not given to know more, but there are many questions to which the School’s organs should provide answers: we hope that, following this article, articulate answers will come to the many doubts that are emerging. For now, we have only one tool, the website, which appears to be a perfect portrayal of what the Heritage School or BACT School is: an object about which very little is understood.

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