Educating the chartered surveyor: looking back to look forward

• Author: Carrie de Silva
• Position: Harper Adams University, Newport, UK
• Pages: 250-270

Educating the chartered

surveyor: looking back to

look forward

Carrie de Silva

Harper Adams University, Newport, UK

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider perennial issues in the education of chartered

surveyors and to use the debates and experiences of the past to inform the present and future,

particularly the question of the balance between academic and practical training.

Design/methodology/approach – Primary and secondary sources were used to establish a history

of the growth of the profession and the development of formal education and assessment from the 19th

century and to consider current issues with reference to wider theories of education.

Findings – The profession grew from vocational roots and did not enjoy the centuries of status of, say,

the law. The 19th century saw an increasing technicalisation and professionalisation of surveying, with

developments in various strands of the discipline, from the rural land agents to construction and public

housing specialists. The muted reception from the universities in recognising the discipline is

instructive. Looking at the relationship between classroom education and apprenticeship and what is

needed in the preliminary education and assessment of surveyors holds contemporary lessons as

increasing university fees has prompted renewed review of the most economical ways of training, while

maintaining rigour.

Originality/value – There have been histories of surveying and of the Royal Institution of Chartered

Surveyors, but this paper relates the past to the present. Its value is in highlighting the tension between

the practical and academic, allowing current debates to benet from earlier discussions and

longitudinal experience of different models of education. This paves the way for a wider consideration

of experiential learning theory to be applied to a fundamental review of surveying education.

Keywords Experiential learning, Professionalisation, Surveying education, Surveying history,

Chartered surveyor, Royal institution of chartered surveyors

Paper type General review

Introduction

How best to educate the professional, to assess that education and to ensure both a base

of competence in the new recruit and a rm foundation for lifelong professional and

personal development?[1] That question has exercised the surveying, and every other,

profession for as long as specialisms have sought labels.

This paper considers some (although by no means all) of the questions which

professional education raises, and seeks to present them against a review of the

development of the profession and training of the chartered surveyor, to inform current

debates.

The recognition of the need for formal education is considered, then the delivery and

assessment of that education. Reection on the method of provision raises the tension

between academic and practical teaching and learning, an enduring theme of discussion

to date. It is particularly apposite to consider these tensions today, as we see further

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/1756-1450.htm

IJLBE

6,3

250

International Journal of Law in the

Built Environment

Vol. 6 No. 3, 2014

pp. 250-270

© Emerald Group Publishing Limited

1756-1450

DOI 10.1108/IJLBE-08-2013-0031

expansion in the RICS technical AssocRICS qualication, a widening of the AssocRICS

to MRICS “bridging” transfer arrangements and developments in the “professional

experience” route to full chartered status through work experience rather than,

necessarily, a relevant academic base[2]. These issues will be revisited after tracing the

educational developments of the profession, with a brief introduction to ideas of learning

theory, particularly experiential learning, which might usefully form the basis of a

fundamental educational review.

Tracing the history of the profession now embraced by the RICS[3], is not eased by

the range of disciplines encompassed, of varying degrees of relationship[4]. Indeed, the

issue of deciding what a surveyor is and the public perception thereof has been seen as

a fetter on everything from professional development in the 19th century (Clutton,

1868-1869 to recruitment to the profession and related university courses in the 20th and

21st centuries (Lay, 1998;Greulich, 2003). The common strand is, of course, property

(usually, although not exclusively, real property): measuring, developing, valuing,

managing, leasing and transferring[5].

The designation “profession” will be taken at face value for now[6], but the word

carries a range of implications not universally agreed (Klass, 1967), not least involving

the split between technical and professional which has been a key issue from the earliest

days through to the MRICS/AssocRICS division today.

The recognition of a need for education

From the earliest mention of “surveying” as a discrete eld of expertise, there was a

self-evident need for technical instruction. Before the late 18th century, there was little

structure and people engaged in work which would now be embraced under the title

and/or professional regulation of surveyor, learned and developed largely through

familial connections, some going on to produce relatively widely used texts. A brief

listing of the major works illustrates the growth in the provision of access to common

and best practice to allow young men (as it inevitably was at that time) to educate

themselves for professional work beyond the connes of their pupil masters.

In 1523, we see the idea of surveying and the role of surveyor quantied for the rst

time in print by John Fitzherbert in the Book of Surveying and Improvements. This book

was published at the same time as the Book of Husbandry by the same author[7], and we

will return below to the rural, rather than urban, origins of the profession[8].

Mention might be made at this point of the great Victorian texts, notably: Ryde’s

(1854)[9]General Textbook for the constant use and reference of Architects, Engineers,

Surveyors, Solicitors, Auctioneers, Land Agents and Stewards,Reid’s (1848,1849)

Surveyor’s and Builder’s Assistant and The Young Surveyor’s Preceptor and Leaning’s

(1880) Textbook on Quantity Surveying.

These books, and others of their ilk, were central to the early plans for training even

as the profession gained institutional structure and educational assessment.

The growth of major building projects from the eighteenth century, notably canals

and later railways, saw the role of surveyor and civil engineer blurred, similarly with

building projects and the role of surveyor, architect, builder and measurer. When,

having constructed the property, it came to transferring it the lines of demarcation

between surveyor, lawyer and scrivener[10] were, again, often indistinct.

Clearly, however, people were undertaking work in elds which would now be

recognised as surveying. When anyone proffers expertise, either practical or

251

Educating the

chartered

surveyor