Nubia Museum Training Programme

Training Programme for the Staff of the Nubia Museum

Since 1992 ICOM has been intensively involved in the training programme of the staff of the Nubia Museum within UNESCO's International Campaign for the Establishment of the Nubia Museum in Aswan and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo.

ICOM co-ordinated this training programme under contract with UNESCO and in close co-operation with EAO (Egyptian Antiquities Organization), later the SCA (Supreme Council of Antiquities).
The Secretary General and the programme officers of ICOM Secretariat together with board members of ICTOP (International Committee for Training of Personnel) were responsible for the implementation of the training programme.

First Phase: Training and Museum Internship
After the selection, the students participated in the following training programmes:

• a general introduction to museology (April 1993) at ICOM Headquarters in Paris
• a 2-month general internship at selected museums in the United Kingdom and Germany.
• Museology Summer School in Brno (Czech Republic);
• finally a 6-week specialised internship in a museum (United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands)

Second Phase: In situ training sessions.
Courses and training sessions were organised on the following topics:

• Exihibition Design (September 1996)
• General Museology (June 1998)
• Documentation, registration and cataloguing (February 1999)
• Preventive and curative conservation (April 2000)

Third Phase: Workshops.
The following workshops were organised for the Nubia Museum Staff as well as for other museum professionals from Egypt.

• Museology Training of Trainers (November 2001)
• Museum Management (November 2001)
• Collections Management (December 2001)

Results: At the end of 2001 four of the six trainees are still working at the Nubia Museum, one as director and the others as heads of departments.

Development of the Nubia Museum as a Regional Training and Research Centre in Conservation and Museology: Given the high degree of proficiency attained by its staff member and the state-of-the-art facilities of the museum, the Egyptian Government wishes to establish a regional training and research centre in conservation and museology at the Nubia Museum.

ICOM is thus under contract with UNESCO to further equip the museum to enable it to fulfil this new function. It is facilitating the purchase of a computerised network and equipping the documentation centre with publications in all of the museum related fields, as well as translations into Arabic.

ICOM is also undertaking a survey in the Arab countries and Africa (in collaboration with AFRICOM and the Programme for Museum Development in Africa (PMDA) as concerns the African countries) to determine training needs in the region. The results of this survey will provide the basis for planning the training courses to be offered at the Nubia Museum Training Centre.
It is foreseen that the senior members of the Nubia Museum staff will serve as trainers for the courses dispensed at the Regional Centre. In the first years of operation of the Centre they will be assisted by an international and regional consultants.