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Commonwealth
Forests | | |
 Technical vs. professional
The relationship between technical training and professional training is complex. At what point
does training in technical matters, traditionally taught in technical education courses become
training in knowledge-based skills, traditionally taught in professional schools? This debate is
complicated by the blurring of roles between forestry professionals and trained technicians: for
example, the Association of British
Columbia Forest Professionals now includes both Registered Professional Foresters and
Registered Forest Technologists, although the two categories are kept very separate in relation
to permitted activities.
The artificial distinction between diploma-based and degree-based programmes fails to take
into account that many universities will provide credits to those with a diploma, enabling them
to enter into the later years of a degree programme. In some cases, such courses have been
successful but in others, such as Makerere University, Uganda, the programme designed to
enable diploma students to upgrade to a full degree has not been well-received. The first jobs
of many professionally trained foresters are in technical positions, and the skills that they have
learnt at university may quickly be lost. The relatively low pay and often difficult working
conditions associated with such positions can also act as a disincentive to those entering the
profession. In addition, many practising foresters consider that there is too much superfluous
material taught in degree programmes, whereas the material (particularly the field skills) they
really need is not taught in sufficient depth.
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