Since its establishment in 1985, the Getty Conservation Institute has been involved in education and training. During the first decade of its history, the Institute ran a regular series of courses, workshops, and meetings for conservation professionals that addressed issues related to the conservation of museum collections, archaeological sites, and historic architecture. These activities were often undertaken in partnership with other international, regional, and national entities and reflected the particular learning priorities of the countries and regions where the Institute worked. For more information, see A Brief History of the GCI's Education and Training Program.

Starting in the late 1990s, the GCI increasingly placed its training efforts within its field projects. By doing so, the GCI was able to work with the same group of learners over an extended period of time and to combine classroom-based teaching and practical field experience. Examples can be found in the project Conservation of Mosaics in Situ, which included a component that focused on the training of technicians in the documentation and maintenance of archaeological mosaics in Tunisia, as well as in the Mogao Grottoes wall paintings project, which addressed the training of wall paintings conservators in China.

The GCI continues to see education as an important means of advancing the conservation profession internationally. The success of the Institute's field efforts, along with the recognition of new or ongoing training needs, led the GCI to reestablish a department to oversee a broader range of education and training activities. Initially placed within the Associate Director's Office, Education was launched as a distinct department in October 2007. The GCI's Education department will continue to grow over the next several years, building upon existing programmatic strengths while adding new initiatives that address urgent learning and professional development priorities within the field.

The choice of the name of "education" rather than "training" marks an important distinction and direction for the newly-emergent department. "Education" is usually understood to encompass the cultivation of knowledge, judgment, and skills critical to a profession or calling, while "training" is generally focused on the development of task-related skills. Education entails a longer-term and systemic process—critical to the development of professionals—while training answers immediate term needs for certain job skills or information. Although the Institute's work encompasses both education and training, the name of the department signifies the GCI's commitment both to the development of conservation professionals and to the learning infrastructure that produces them. While shorter training courses and workshops remain a feature of the Institute's work, they now fit within a broader strategy of advancing conservation education through longer-term engagement with learners, the strengthening of existing teaching institutions, and the pedagogy of conservation.

The audience for the GCI's education efforts is, for the most part, conservation professionals. This broadly defined group may include conservators, conservation scientists, archaeologists, architects, and engineers. In certain contexts, such as Tunisia, the GCI's projects may also focus on technicians and craftspeople who are responsible for caring for heritage resources. Senior-level policy- and decision-makers form another part of the Institute's audience and may be involved—directly or indirectly—in courses, meetings, and related projects to increase their understanding of, and support for, conservation. The GCI also collaborates with other educators as part of its efforts to support development of conservation education.

As the GCI expands its education work, pedagogy—the theory and practice of teaching—continues as a priority. The Education department seeks to incorporate into its projects the latest thinking and practice from mainstream education, adapting them to the Institute's audiences and teaching contexts. Innovation will take the form of new ways to think about teaching, learning, and professional practice. Since most of the Institute's work occurs in regions where access to conservation education and training may be limited, the GCI seeks to develop learning models that can provide course participants longer exposure to instructors. These models include follow-up courses and distance learning that can reinforce or expand classroom-based teaching.

Teaching technology is likely to become increasingly important as it provides new opportunities for both education and professional collaboration. Several of the GCI's current projects have sought to extend teaching and learning beyond the confines of the classroom through "blended learning"—a combination of classroom-based teaching with Web-based learning and mentoring. The Education department is also exploring communication and networking vehicles—such as online communities and social networks—that can give otherwise isolated professionals the chance to operate as part of a larger community of practitioners.

Over the past few years, the GCI's education infrastructure projects have sought to build the capacity of existing educational institutions through academic partnerships. Such partnerships make it possible not only to transfer subject matter knowledge and expertise, but also teaching materials and strategies that are developed by the GCI's projects. An example can be found in the project on the conservation of photographs in central, southern, and eastern Europe. Through the Institute's collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava and the Slovak National Library, the curriculum, teaching materials, and strategies developed for the course Fundamentals of the Conservation of Photographs will be transferred to the Academy and other institutions to assist in the development of their own programs.

Additional projects address other priorities for the development of conservation education. When a number of directors of conservation programs expressed the desire for more opportunities for communication with their peers, the GCI launched an ongoing series of meetings—entitled Directors' Retreats for Conservation Education—to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information and to promote strategic thinking across institutions. Directors Retreats'—which have occurred in 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008—have allowed participants to discuss key issues for the future of conservation education over the span of several days. The fourth in this series of retreats took place in Southeast Asia in June 2008, and was attended by education professionals with a particular interest in developing built heritage education in the region. This retreat complements other activities occurring within the GCI's Southeast Asia Built Heritage Initiative.