Su Yuwen

Today there are two new subjects confronting the archival education and training in China: one is: the establishment and development of socialist market economy has made the realignment of social economy structure and industry structure, as well as redistribution of labor resources, thus speeding up personnel flowing and moving. As to the archives, constant transferring of staff has brought into archives new vitality and vigor. At the same time, there always appears a problem of educating & training these new staff archival professional theory and practical experiences; and another is: the rapid development of modern science, especially the information technology has given a deep impact on archives. Constant changes are occurring in record creation, preservation and their access to researchers. This situation need to educate and train a group of qualified archivists to meet demands.

In order to cope with above-mentioned situation and to explore new ways archival education and training, we have implemented the on-job training for archives staff since the early nineties of the century.

In China, on-job training is a kind of in-service training for those staff that has not got any university degrees, with a purpose to raise their political and professional knowledge and technique.

Since the implementation of the on-job training, trainees attending various kinds of training courses have amounted to 40,000 per year. Archives administration departments of various levels have set up and summarized a lot of experience on management, teaching and examination of on-job training. Now is becomes one of the most effective ways, which is most popular and broadly attended by archives staff in China.

1. The aim of the on-job training

In China, there is roughly one million full-time and part-time archival staff. According to incomplete statistics, the number of archival staff has been increased 5 times in the 15 years between 1983 and 1997. Generally speaking, their education is low and most of them have not undergone education & training on archive profession. Therefore the main purpose of the on-job training is to get qualifications for the archival staff. That is: through the on-job qualification training on the basic theory of archives science and professional techniques they can professionally be qualified and meet requirements of various archives institutions.

In addition to the qualification training, the on-job training also undertakes the task of suited-to-work training for staff. The rapid development of modern science and technology requires archivist to make a continued study so that they could learn from and have a good command of new knowledge and new technology in order to meet the demand of the advanced management of archives and to promote the development of the archives undertakings.

2. The guiding principal and main contents of the on-job training

The on-job training is different from the ordinary training in following respects:

1) Difference of trainees. They usually are in-service staff or new staff or to be engaged in archival work and have some practical work experiences;

2) Different education background. Most of the trainees have finished various general education, some of them have even studies at colleges or vocational schools;

3) Difference of training contents. The emphasis of the on-job training is on the development of work capability and professional technique needed by trainees at their posts. SO all training activities are based on the needs of the actual jobs trainees are engaged in;

4) Difference of training purpose. The final purpose of the on-job training is to upgrade and improve work ability of trainees and it could be carried out without considering time, venue, or method.

Considering the above-mentioned characteristics, we insist on the guiding principle of combinations of training with actual job, training with needs, and training with efficiency.

3. The management of the on-job training

We have adopted the policy of unified management with the training to be carried out at various levels. The State Archives Administration of China is responsible for the macro-management of the on-job training, including drawing up overall program and plans, to put forward its implementation methods, and to make supervision and inspection.

The training is conducted by local archives administration departments or archives institutions. They formulate training plans, contents and methods and conduct the training courses in accordance with their actual situations and needs.

Three categories of the on-job training are as follows:

1) The Archives Training Center (at the national level) is responsible for the training of leaders of archives at the provincial level as well as leaders of archives or records office central government agencies;

2) The archives administration departments of the provincial level are responsible for the training of leaders of prefectures and city archives, of records offices of provincial government agencies, and of archives and records offices of big enterprises;

3) Archives administration departments of the central government agencies; together with province archives administration departments are responsible for staff on-job training within their own profession or line.

Archives administration departments below the province levels also conduct similar on-job training.

4. The establishment of training curriculum

The aim of on-job qualification training is different from that of on-job continues (suited-to-work) training and the curriculum establishment between the two training is something different:

1) For those who are archives staff or to be archives staff, the emphasize of the curriculum is on the archives theory and work, as they have a better command of knowledge and what they need is professional theory and knowledge on archives. The training curriculum include: Archives Administration Science / Records Management Science / Management of Technological Records / Archives Compiling Science / Archives Preservation / Archives Law, standards and Regulations, etc. at the same time, trainees are requested to do practical work at archives institutions in order to increase their perceptual knowledge and to be acquainted themselves with the archives profession;

2) The purpose of on-job continued training is to make archives staff know and understand the development of modern science and information technology and to study the new applied scientific technology. The training curriculum includes information technology / The Introduction of Computer into Archives / The management of New Media at Archives / Archives preservation and Reproduction / the Impact of Environment on Archives, etc. In addition, trainees are requested to learn something on the development of foreign archive administration and records management.

5. Publications on training teaching materials

Since 1991, the State Archives Administration of China has organized teachers from Universities and senior archivists from archive institutions to prepare & compile teaching materials on training. Up to 1997, ten types of publications on training have been published and they are: An Introduction to Archives Science / A Brief Introduction to the Chinese Archives Undertakings / Records Management of Government Agencies / Archives Administration of Government Agencies / The Establishment of Archives Profession and Management / Records management at Enterprises / Management of Scientific and Technological Records / An Introduction to Archives Study and Compiling / Archives Preservation / and the Administration of Foreign Archives. There are 4 types publications specially used for the training of directors of various archives institution and they are; Elements of Archives Science / An Introduction to Archive Institutions / An Introduction to Records Office / and the Modernization of Archives Administration.

6. The establishment of training teachers

Trainers on archives in China are composed by full-time teachers and part-time teachers with the latter as the main force. The fill-time teachers are more experience in teaching and have a better command of archives theory, but they are far from meeting the needs. Because of uncertainty of training time, venue, purpose and methods, it is difficult to establish a special team of the full-time teachers. Concerning the establishment of training teachers, we put the emphasis on the following two respects:

1) In accordance with the needs of training, the archives administration departments at various levels could recommend nominees of part-time teachers from middle and senior archivists who have a better theory on archives science and are much experienced in archival practice so that the part-time teachers could be reasonably distributed in all parts of China.

2) The archives administration departments at national and provincial levels shall conduct training and examination to the nominees of part-time teachers so that their teaching ability & experience could be ensured. Those who have passed the examination shall get an employment certificate showing he/she is qualified as a part time training teacher. So far, the total number of part-time teachers has amounted to 2000 and they will certainly play an important role in promoting the on-job training in China.

7. Prospects of on-job training of archives staff

As the on-job training of archivists is unreplaceble in China archives education, it is highly emphasized by archives administration departments at various levels and the on-job training has always been put on the priority at their work program or plans. In future, we shall develop this training from the following two respects:

1) To establish and improve the on-job training system, which includes:

(1) to define the role of the on-job training in archives education;

(2) to determine the definition, function and task of the on-job training;

(3) to standardize the management and teaching methods of the on-job training;

(4) to establish the system of the employment, promotion and title appraisal of archives staff with the on-job training;

(5) to establish a supervision system over the on-job training so that it could be carried out in a healthy and stable way.

2) To further strengthen the infrastructure establishment

Comparatively speaking, the infrastructure facilities for the on-job training in China is not so complete and advanced, and could not meet the demands. More investment should be made in future so that such situations may be improved step by step.

(1) To gradually improve the training conditions by establishing some training and teaching bases in accordance with the principle of rational distribution and various local conditions;

(2) To introduce modern teaching and training methods such as computer with multimedia technique, closed circuit TV system, etc. into teaching and research of training. Necessary equipment should be installed with the purpose of speeding up modern and advanced teaching technique.

Confronting with the situation of the constant flowing of archives staff and the acceleration of knowledge renewal, the on-job training is playing a more and more important role in developing labor resources of archives institutions and improving the quality of archives staff. It is hoped with the combined efforts by various administration departments and the faculty of archives colleges and departments, on-job training of archivists in China will be more developed and we shall enter into the new century with confidence and bright future.

Thanks