The new examination program for the National Tourist Guide qualification, published by the Ministry of Tourism in recent days, has raised concerns from Italian Tourist Guides (GTI), a trade association that has been critical of the overall structure of the announcement. While recognizing some positive elements, the association believes that the current structure risks compromising the training quality of future professionals in the sector.
GTI welcomes the inclusion within the call for proposals of guided tour simulations focused on relevant sites, museums and works. In particular, there is a marked preference for the archaeological field, attributed to the composition of the examining board. However, this bias is considered acceptable, as the sites indicated are deemed representative and the evaluation method is judged functional. Positive aspects also include the inclusion of a precise list of laws and regulations regarding tourism, cultural heritage and accessibility. The presence of clear legislative references is seen as a useful contribution to delimiting the area of study and containing candidates’ dispersion in theoretical preparation.
“We had already expressed these concerns during the ministerial working table and our concerns are now confirmed and accentuated. At the time we had formally communicated to the Ministry our opposition to a selection principle based on a mere enumeration of places and works,” the Association’s board reiterates.
The main critical issues emerge, in any case, in the center of the announcement, namely in the composition of the annexes related to the written and oral test. GTI expresses strong reservations about the long and articulated list of archaeological sites, museums, monuments and churches that candidates are required to know. According to the association, the list appears overly extensive and lacks unifying logic, turning the exam into a kind of mnemonic exercise based on the mere repetition of dates, names and disconnected notions.
Alternatively, GTI would have liked to see an approach centered on art-historical and archaeological eras, possibly narrowing the focus to certain artists, periods or cultural phenomena. A thematic and chronological approach, according to the association, would have fostered the development of connections between different content, more consistently reflecting the real skills required in the daily work of a tour guide: the ability to establish links between places, works and contexts, adapting the level of information according to the audience and the situation.
“We understand the aspiring guides, who are understandably bewildered by such a jumbled program,” says the GTI board. “We trust that in the future, considering that the exam will be annual, significant improvements can be made to achieve a more appropriate level in line with the needs of the profession.”
Instead, GTI notes, the current formulation of the exam seems inspired by a notionalistic approach, lacking interpretive tools and far removed from the method used in teaching History, Art and Geography in high schools. According to the association, it is precisely the qualification required for access to the test that highlights the inadequacy of the proposed approach. In fact, school curricula do not provide for the study of encyclopedic lists, but rather propose a reasoned path through eras, styles, phenomena and protagonists. This allows students to develop an ability to critically read content and place it within a coherent narrative, a fundamental skill for those who are about to engage in cultural outreach.
Additional concerns are also raised with respect to the selection of some of the locations included in the program. In more than one case, these are sites that are not accessible to the public or located in areas that are difficult to reach, as in the case of a site that can only be visited via a long trekking route. According to GTI, the inclusion of places with these characteristics is inconsistent with the professional profile of the tour guide and would instead be more relevant to that of a hiking guide.
The association points out the imbalance between the disciplines represented, with an obvious overabundance of archaeological content at the expense of Art History, which should instead be a pillar of every guide’s training. For GTI, the decision to give greater weight to a single disciplinary area risks penalizing multidisciplinary preparation, which has always been considered one of the distinctive elements of the professional figure of the tour guide.
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| GTI raises concerns about the call for the national tour guide exam |
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