Veronika Harris

My vision was to make all training and development opportunities visible and accessible to everyone and to provide career progression. The V&A’s training programmes were already well established, supported by museum professionals and constantly evaluated and updated. These included programmes for the roles of assistant curator and technician. I realised that these could be offered to other museums and galleries as a valuable opportunity for sharing skills. I approached Education Development International to help start the accreditation process, so that the training programmes would be given national status as a “V&A vocational award”. The technician award was the first to be accredited, having been developed by the V&A technicians to professionalise and raise the profile of their roles in the sector. This was supported by the Learning and Skills Council, which funded the development costs. Most members of the V&A technical team are now qualified and trained as assessors, which has resulted in promotions and has supported the training of staff at other museums nationally. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority even approached us for the assistant curator programme to be listed as a national qualification.