Training in cultural policy and management: international ... - Encatc

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commercial worlds can be dated back to at least the establishment of the Harvard Business School
and the first MBA (Master of Business Administration) in 1908, and by 1912 Harvard was already
developing the core MBA teaching and learning technique of working from practical case studies. High
level education in the administration and management of governmental and other public bodies
became common in a number of countries from the 1940s onwards, as seen in the establishment in
1945 of France’s all-powerful “ENA” - L’Ecole Nationale d’Administration, followed soon afterward by
Diplomas and Master’s degrees in Public Administration in Universities and Colleges and then a Civil
Service Staff College in the United Kingdom.
Over the decades, and continuing today, very significant numbers of senior leaders of cultural sector
ministries, institutions and organisations have followed the “general” management or public
administration course and qualification routes, such as an MBA course or that of the ENA or similar
national advanced public service staff colleges, drawing on cultural sector management for some of
their work-related case studies and problem-solving exercises. Indeed, the Harvard Business School is
today a major provider of tested and proven cultural management case studies, which are used under
licence (and for payment) by a number of the newer specialised cultural management courses around
the world.
Related professions
Related cultural sector professions, such as libraries and museums, have very long-established
professional education and training programmes covering both management and administration, in
addition to more technical issues of professional practice, and a high proportion of senior staff within
cultural ministries and services currently come from one or other of these professions, while many
other such staff were originally trained and began their careers in other professional areas that have
emerged over the past half-century, particularly leisure and heritage management.
In the case of librarianship such programmes have existed for almost a century. In the museums,
galleries and heritage sector, the first advanced university course in museum practice and
management was established in Argentina in 1927, while an international postgraduate level Museums
Diploma, including substantial management content, was launched across the United Kingdom and the
overseas Dominions in 1931.
UNESCO’s first active involvement in the field seems to have been the 1971 launch, in partnership
with the International Council of Museums (ICOM), of a recommended “Programme Type” (Model
Curriculum) for museum professional training, including general management and administration
training, which has been a major influence on the curricula of the majority of the world’s 500 or more
advanced museum professional training courses. Again, as with general business management and
public administration courses, significant numbers of senior managers in the arts around the world
have undertaken advanced management within one of the parallel or related divisions of the cultural
sector, such as libraries or museums.
More recently, employment in, and professional training for, newer but still related professional areas
such as sports and leisure management, heritage management and tourism management have grown
exponentially, and today across much of the European cultural sector “generalist” professionals
without a professional background in one or more specific cultural services are now holding many of
the most senior cultural management and development jobs, particularly those within public sector
cultural services.
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