L’Archeologia tra formazione e pratica: il ruolo dell’Università in Sicilia

Abstract

The relationship between university and political and social institutions in Sicily has undergone a deep transformation since the end of the '80s. Before that period, university, as a teaching and research structure, was deeply linked with political institutions dealing with the management and preservation of cultural heritage; these institutions, on the other hand, offered the main chances of employment for graduates in humanities and archaeology. After that period, university and politic have undertaken instead, completely different ways, especially in the field of cultural heritage, due to a different economic context and a wider ideological change. The role of the university as a place of elaboration of ideas and place of discussion has been reconsidered, the role of humanities, and classics, as a fundamental part of elite education has been subject to criticism, and the idea has been widely accepted that higher educational institutions must focus on professional training, and must be evaluated according to the "success" of their students and the degree. A similar change can be detected in the field of material cultural patrimony, now considered mainly an "economic" resource. The shift from the purely ethic or aesthetic evaluation to an "economic" evaluation based on "outputs", "results", "economic sustainability" has brought to deep crisis of identity in the field of upper education and in the role of public administration against private enterprise. If the management of a site or a museum is a purely economic activity, there is no special need for the director to be a specialist in the field, however, if there is no need of specialists, those institutions dealing with the training of those specialists are meant to failure. In the case of Sicily, this process is still more visible, and its effects more devastating, due to the special social, economic, and not least, political situation of the island. Private enterprise is almost lacking, so that the main chances of employment for young graduates in archaeology is public administration. But the framework within which the Regione Siciliana has worked in the last 20 years, has gone the opposite way: through a series of regulations, has the formation of a bureaucratic apparatus been codified where the role of archaeologists has become more and more less important. Moreover, negotiations between politicians and unions has brought to a codification which takes into account current aspirations and needs of currently employed staff and takes into no consideration a long term strategy aiming at the future development. The professional role of the archaeologist, e.g., notwithstanding the attempt of the 2008 regulation, has not been defined, while it is now foreseen by a recently approved national law (so called Legge Madia.) Due to this choice, the perspectives of working possibilities are very few, in both the private sector and realm of public administration, not to mention university: as an effect, a decrease in the number of students enrolling in the courses of archaeology is clear in the last two years, with a consequent evaluation of the same courses and more limited opportunities os fund raising. If this process will continue, the teaching quality will be affected and Sicilian universities will become more and more less appealing in comparison to their relationship with society, and in this special case, of Sicilian society, but also should recapture their role of critical thinking, not limiting themselves to the function of professional trainers. Of the institutions, which should understand the enormous importance of archaeological heritage in Sicily and try to reconnect themselves with university teaching, in order to The relationship between university and political and social institutions in Sicily has undergone a deep transformation since the end of the '80s. Before that period, university, as a teaching and research structure, was deeply linked with