MiBACT competition, Forza Italia deputies ask minister to revise quizzes to reward skills and abilities

The Ministry of Cultural Heritage ’s competition for 1,052 enjoyment, reception and supervision assistants comes to Parliament, where it is the subject of an urgent interpellation by two Forza Italia deputies, Guido Germano Pettarin and Roberto Occhiuto. Preliminary tests for the maxicompetition of more than 200,000 entrants were held Jan. 8-20 at the Fiera di Roma and raised several protests from participants, Pettarin and Occhiuto write. “The competition in question,” the interpellation reads, “has been the target of repeated and fierce criticism, in addition to having aroused widespread discontent among the participants regarding the structuring and the way in which the tests were held; the problems highlighted here, in addition to afflicting the competition in question, raise problems of a more general nature, which affect the entire system of public selections, requiring an urgent and unpostponable reflection, in view of the holding of future competitions.”

The pre-selection tests, Pettarin and Occhiuto point out, have been strongly criticized by Professor Giuliano Volpe, former rector of the University of Foggia and professor of archaeological research methodologies at the University of Bari, in an article on the Fai Fondo Ambiente Italiano website, which states that “a quick glance at the type of quizzes provided highlights a blatant inconsistency: 40 of an aptitude type to test logical-deductive ability, logical-mathematical reasoning, verbal critical character and 20 on general elements of cultural heritage law, Italian art history and workplace safety. While any high school diploma is required as an entry qualification, passing the quizzes seems to require a mix of skills from graduates in mathematics, law, economics and cultural heritage!”

So, the deputies write, “given for granted that cultural sites need people who, first and foremost, know the cultural heritage they are called upon to care for, conserve and enhance, but also the cultural heritage code (in a more or less in-depth manner depending on what are the tasks they have to perform),” in their opinion, one cannot but agree with what Giuliano Volpe said when he stated that such competitions do not select “the most deserving and suitable to perform that particular function” and, on the contrary, “indeed, it only fuels a state of frustration in those who, after years of study and perhaps even having acquired one or more post-graduate degrees, are denied access to the competitive tests only because they did not have the readiness to answer questions that are not pertinent to their course of study, to the advantage of those who, on the other hand, despite not having specific skills in the subject matter of the competition manage to pass the tests, thanks in part to the numerical weight that certain questions have compared to others that should instead be pre-eminent.” As a result, they ask the minister if it is not the case to take initiatives to “consider a serious rethinking of the criteria for the articulation and structuring of the quizzes, in such a way as to calibrate the selection on skills and requirements actually relevant to the subject in which the position being competed falls.”

But it is not only the tests that create headaches: even the figure of the assistant to the fruition, reception and supervision (Afav), the two deputies write, “does not correspond to any professional figure in the panorama of the sector.” In fact, they explain, “since 2006, the National Charter of Museum Professions drawn up by Icom, an association that moreover collaborates with the Ministry, and the European Handbook of Museum Professions, created in 2008 on the basis of the National Charter, highlight how in cultural institutions there is a need for qualified operators divided by skills into functional areas, which are interconnected and interacting: librarians, guides, museum educators, curators, necessarily with specific qualifications, and then janitors or receptionists, who may also be less qualified in relation to the material area of operation.”

To date, Pettarin and Occhiuto continue, “ none of this exists in the structure of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism; otherwise there is the Afav, which incorporates several professional figures into one, a true ”handyman“ ready to carry out, according to the job description, in addition to supervisory and custodial activities, as well as front office management, which intrinsically do not require specific technical skills, as well as ”activities of organizing and conducting guided tours, including in foreign languages; collection operations, participating, if necessary, in the distribution and relocation of bibliographic and archival material; provision of information on the methods of consultation, loan and reproduction of documentary, bibliographic and audiovisual material; provision of mediation tools, aimed at facilitating the enjoyment of the cultural assets pertaining to the structure to which they belong, also through the use of research/knowledge tools (catalogs, directories and inventories), including computerized ones.“ Activities, these, which on closer inspection, necessarily calling into question specific knowledge, should be the responsibility of qualified personnel in other categories, selected on different bases.”

All this, according to the two deputies, entails, “at the very least, an unreasonable paradox : namely, that on the one hand, qualified personnel, in order to reach their positions, must pass rigidly (and rightly) selective tests calibrated on specific skills, to the exclusion of officials, who in the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism must have at least 7 years of studies behind them; on the other hand, there is a facilitated channel of access, that for Afavs, who are hired through competitions that require only a high school diploma, which then allows once they enter to exercise, in effect, tasks due to qualified personnel.” Pettarin and Occhiuto therefore ask the minister “why the ministerial profiles have not yet been adjusted to the existing qualifications, forcing graduates to participate in competitions that require a diploma, for a figure that is not the one they studied for; a question, this one, which unfortunately could be generalized and extended to a great many other public competitions.”

MiBACT competition, Forza Italia deputies ask minister to revise quizzes to reward skills and abilities

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