British Muggle/Wizarding schooling WAS Graduation

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 53847

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Kathryn Cawte" <kcawte at b...> 
wrote:
> Pip wrote -
> So it would be strange if the WW did not have a similar system of 
> job based exams and qualifications (Snape might be a Chartered 
> Apothecary, for example).
>  
> The other point to consider is that the British WW is quite simply 
> too *small* to support a University. 1000 students (JKR's estimate 
> of the size of Hogwarts) equals 143 students per year. If 50% 
> decide to go on to University, and it's a 3 year English style 
> course, then that's only 214 undergraduates TOTAL.
>  
> 214 people is an awfully small college. Generally, only specialist 
> schools can afford to be that small. Individual research and 
> training would actually make a *lot* more sense.
>  
> Kathryn:
> 
> I certainly think there has to be some post-Hogwarts training for
> professions such as potions making and nursing, and since the 
> world seems to be medieval/renaissance in many respects I think a 
> system similar to medieval guilds would be most likely. But what 
> about for things like teaching. I can't see a school hiring 
> someone to teach (for example) Transfigurations up to NEWT 
> standard if their highest qualification was a NEWT. It just 
> doesn't make sense.
> 
> I know JKR has said there isn't a university and I agree there 
> aren't enough pupils to support one. But there would be enough to 
> support a college at Oxford or Cambridge (or St Andrews or any 
> other collegiate university for that matter, but only one) and 
> since they were both founded (I believe) before the wizarding 
> world split from the muggle one then it would fit. Plus some of   
> them tend to be very old fashioned and traditional so I doubt it
> would even look out of place.
> 
> And I know if there was such a college it would contradict JKR's 
> statement(and it's her world so she should know), but I feel there 
> is a need for something.
> 
> K

I think you are forgetting that many teachers in the Nineteenth and 
early Twentieth Centuries *were* trained by apprenticeship. If you 
read (for example) Charles Dickens' 'Our Mutual Friend', you'll see 
the boy Charley Hexam being apprentice teacher (it was actually 
called 'pupil teacher') to Bradley Headstone.

The problem in canon is that we don't *know* how teachers are 
trained, or if they're trained at all. Hagrid certainly isn't 
trained to teach, Gilderoy Lockhart doesn't seem to be trained - it 
seems to be very much along the lines of 'you know a lot about this 
subject, come and teach it.'

However, this may be largely due to the difficulty in getting DADA 
teachers, and Dumbledore's fondness for Hagrid. Lupin seems to have 
some kind of qualification to teach (Professor R.J. Lupin is on his 
suitcase in old and peeling letters). Hagrid, Lockhart and 
Moody/Crouch aren't called by the title 'Professor'. The people who 
are (Snape, Flitwick, McGonagall, Sprout) do all seem to manage well 
planned, professional teaching.

Further, when Harry calls Snape plain 'Snape', Dumbledore corrects 
him [PS/SS]. 'Professor' seems to be a title that's earned.

But you don't need a college to go beyond NEWT's. You just need a 
tutor, who can guide your course of study. You don't need to attend 
a lecture if you have a mentor who will tell you which books you 
need to study, what spells or potions you need to attempt, who is 
prepared to set assignments and give you advice on how well you 
completed them. 

You don't even need to have a final exam as such. The medieval 
system was that an apprentice produced a 'masterpiece' at the end of 
their apprenticeship.  A masterpiece was a piece of work so complex 
that it was obvious the apprentice had mastered their craft.

So Flitwick may have proved that he could cast the incredibly 
complex Fidelius Charm. Snape might have made up a Wolfsbane potion. 
And so on.  Neither of these require them to have attended a 
college, but they would prove that they have studied their area to a 
level that is well beyond NEWT's.

There might be a Hogwart's college at Oxford, except a) it 
contradicts JKR's interview statements and b) it's extremely likely 
that anyone studying Magic would have been chucked out/risked being 
imprisoned for heresy in the Middle Ages, or for Dissent/witchcraft 
in the Reformation. The University of London (another collegiate 
university) was founded because large numbers of people were not 
permitted to attend Oxford and Cambridge; their dreadful crime was 
to be of the wrong religion.

The complete separation of the WW from the Muggle world argues that 
the times preceding the split must have been deeply traumatic. I 
can't really see Oxbridge protecting a college full of witches and 
warlocks during the 16th and 17th century witch hunts. St Andrews 
would have been even worse, as the witch hunts in Scotland were more 
virulent than in England.

So it's possible that wizards *did* have their post Hogwarts college 
once, and lost it in the witch hunts before the split. Post split, 
with relatively small numbers needing further wizarding education, 
they may have found that an apprentice style 'personal tutor' to 
guide students' further study was actually all they needed.

Pip