Creative / performing arts courses at English universities face funding cut

[Roberta]

I'm assuming this will affect dance courses also at higher education level.  I'm making no comment, I'm posting it as a news item. 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/apr/04/ministers-to-cut-funding-for-performing-and-creative-arts-courses-in-england?CMP=share_btn_url

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pas de Quatre]

It is a difficult one. As a country we need to fund excellent courses, but how many? In all areas of performing arts the majority of graduates are unlikely to find employment in the discipline they have studied. 

[Roberta]

2 minutes ago, Pas de Quatre said:

In all areas of performing arts the majority of graduates are unlikely to find employment in the discipline they have studied. 

 

Yet there are many arts related roles out there, I have friends who studied a performing art, gained a degree, some a higher degree, and worked in various fields which required a sound knowledge base. Not everyone doing a performance degree wants to perform, in the end. 

 

 

[Pas de Quatre]

So long as the students involved realise this. Many dancers end up with severe mental health problems and eating disorders as they realise they are never going to "make it".  There are masses of posts about this problem from parents on this board.  

[Roberta]

I'm aware of that, though many additionally don't,  however I think anyone attending university at 18 plus doing a dance degree isn't necessarily looking towards a career performing, though of course some do. It's a very sound springboard for arts related careers. 

 

Other art forms are also available, music, drama, fine art etc, all can be pathways to a career which isn't performing. 

[zxDaveM]

surely this follows through on schools' arts budgets being cut to almost nothing

[Roberta]

38 minutes ago, zxDaveM said:

surely this follows through on schools' arts budgets being cut to almost nothing

 

Presumably the thinking is that state schools won't be producing creative students so a plentiful supply of higher education places won't be needed (apart from for an elite who went to private school, where the arts appear to be valued. Access for all? Pah.) 

 

Please don't anyone chime in with how you made great sacrifices to send your DC to private school, that wasn't the point I was making. I'm as appalled as anyone at how little 'the arts' are valued in this country and how they have been squeezed out for the 93% who attend state schools.

 

I said I wasn't going to comment on that news item, however, the more I slept on it the more sickened and saddened I am. Those 'in charge' know the price of everything and the value of nothing. An arts education is never a waste. Politicians of any stripe who believe we as nation shouldn't be funding creativity and all should be sent to do 'serious' courses with a directly related job waiting at the end need a reality check.

 

[zxDaveM]

13 minutes ago, Roberta said:

 

Those 'in charge' know the price of everything and the value of nothing. An arts education is never a waste. Politicians of any stripe who believe we as nation shouldn't be funding creativity and all should be sent to do 'serious' courses with a directly related job waiting at the end need a reality check.

 

 

Agreed. The contribution 'the arts' make to the economy (thinking back as far as Beatlemania in the 60's, and many other UK bands leading the way worldwide since, as an example) cutting out the foundations in schools, and colleges, of learning an instrument, starting to paint, or act, or learning background technolgies (sound, light etc), just to save a few bob now, seems a false economy for the future. Speculate to accumulate! - just not in the UK

[Roberta]

I add learning about / to dance to your list. 

 

 

5 minutes ago, zxDaveM said:

of learning an instrument, starting to paint, or act, or learning background technolgies (sound, light etc), just to save a few bob now, seems a false economy for the future.

 

[Bruce Wall]

3 minutes ago, zxDaveM said:

 

Speculate to accumulate! - just not in the UK

 

Dave, I fear this British attitude has long been the sad - but all too real - case.  Being actively involved in this area within this isle  - as well as being privileged to be active in many other parts of the world - I proactively see the results of this with vibrant effect.  I've simply given up here I fear and accepted what you write as now a simple fact of life - That way nothing really surprises.  The 'universal (British) THEY' have forced such sadly.  These things seem NOT to alter.  It is especially sad given this country's previous history of precedent setting.  Sadly, you can't live on that - as much as some STILL try.  Things really came into focus for me when Oxford made Shakespeare an 'elective' for English degrees in the latter part of the last century.  This is one of the few countries on earth where you can have a degree in the English language and - in practice - never actively have touched the Bard.  The results speak for themselves I fear - and will long after I'm gone.  There are some things that you simply can't 'buy back'. 

[zxDaveM]

5 minutes ago, Roberta said:

I add learning about / to dance to your list. 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, yes, on this forum that was a given I thought 🙂

[Roberta]

The wider implications of all this downgrading of creative subjects also appear to have been ignored by politicians.

 

Where will educated, informed, enthusiastic, appreciative audiences (I include in this attendees to theatres, concerts, exhibitions, museums, treasure houses in the care of the National Trust, in fact cultural offerings in many forms, long list) appear from if people aren't encouraged to see, from a young age, the value and joy of these things, and that joy belongs to all? 

 

No audience, no revenue, no jobs.  This will massively impact the economy adversely. A great British success story damaged beyond repair. 

 

[Lizbie1]

9 minutes ago, Roberta said:

The wider implications of all this downgrading of creative subjects also appear to have been ignored by politicians.

 

Where will educated, informed, enthusiastic, appreciative audiences (I include in this attendees to theatres, concerts, exhibitions, museums, treasure houses in the care of the National Trust, in fact cultural offerings in many forms, long list) appear from if people aren't encouraged to see, from a young age, the value and joy of these things, and that joy belongs to all? 

 

No audience, no revenue, no jobs.  This will massively impact the economy adversely. A great British success story damaged beyond repair. 

 

 

I have a lot of conflicting thoughts on this subject but I'm not sure this kind of claim hangs together.  In the last few decades there has been a huge expansion of vocational courses in creative subjects in tertiary education but I don't see a corresponding increase in either amateur participants or audience members.

 

This may be at least partly down to primary and secondary schools downgrading performing arts but that is not the subject at hand here. And for the record, cultural development of young minds was not as standard in earlier generations as I sometimes see claimed here: my primary school in the 80s had a nativity play, some occasional movement-to-tape sessions - laughably labelled "drama" - and we were sometimes plonked in front of Music Time, which was enough to put anyone off for life. That was it. There were no school trips to anywhere more culturally enriching than Thorpe Park. If your primary school offered more, you were lucky.

[Emeralds]

Just to add that you don't have to find work as a dancer if you train in dance or as an actor if you train in drama, for example. Many graduates in these subjects have self discipline, versatility and ongoing enthusiasm for learning new things, which makes them better employees and better potential leaders because of these skills which they honed as students of the performing arts.

 

I've seen so many former dancers and actors prove themselves repeatedly in a whole variety of non-arts jobs and careers while graduates from humanities, business and science courses falter because many of the latter have always been told "just get good grades and opportunities will be handed to you on a plate". 

 

The hardest part may be convincing an employer to give you the first job to prove yourself, but nowadays that's the same for all new graduates. This is a narrow minded and erroneous decision from the government. 

[Roberta]

 

 

I have a number of friends with successful arts related careers who have as a first degree / qualification a 'performing art' including dance who have not performed and it was not really their intention when choosing courses. Others began wanting to perform then appreciated it wasn't for them etc. 

 

"A trained cellist, Claire studied music at Southampton University before embarking on her career into arts administration."

 

An example from this very forum this week of a person trained in a 'performing art' who has gone on to make a career NOT performing, though her in-depth knowledge gained via her music degree is what surely began it. 

 

BIRMINGHAM ROYAL BALLET ANNOUNCE
CLAIRE DERSLEY AS HEAD OF ORCHESTRA OPERATIONS

 

 

 

 

[Roberta]

2 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

my primary school in the 80s had a nativity play, some occasional movement-to-tape sessions - laughably labelled "drama" - and we were sometimes plonked in front of Music Time, which was enough to put anyone off for life. That was it. There were no school trips to anywhere more culturally enriching than Thorpe Park. If your primary school offered more, you were lucky.

 

 I was at a 'bog standard' primary school in an earlier decade and I must have been really fortunate, post war years.

 

We had what would now be called creative writing, crafts, art, drama including small scale productions, singing to piano, radio music programmes, recorder lessons, and actually, dance. Creative (yes be a tree, not really me that) and 'country dancing'. It was quite a big thing in schools and younger readers may laugh, but it taught us nifty footwork, working together, social dancing skills, enabled many who would never have thought of dancing in a formal way to get off their seats to perform in a non threatening situation and appreciate that dancing  can be FUN. 

 

The EFDSS is still doing sterling work in schools!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5 by Roberta

[Lizbie1]

6 minutes ago, Roberta said:

"A trained cellist, Claire studied music at Southampton University before embarking on her career into arts administration."

 

An example from this very forum this week of a person trained in a 'performing art' who has gone on to make a career NOT performing, though her in-depth knowledge gained via her music degree is what surely began it. 

 

Studying music at Southampton University is very different to "training in a performing art", which happens at a conservatoire such as RCM, GSMD, etc. Putting it in probably oversimplified terms, it's similar to the difference between studying history of art and going to art college.

 

She is unlikely to have had any expectations of a performing career on the back of her degree alone. To have one the usual route would be to go on to postgraduate studies at a conservatoire. (I studied music.)

[Roberta]

I very much think it's also the type of course facing funding cuts, yet I wonder how many graduates are unemployed?

 

As I said above, there are courses which are sound grounding for arts related careers which I suspect will be axed. I find that sad. 

 

I'm of the opinion no arts related education, theoretical or practical, is the waste politicians appear to believe. I don't actually know what I would have done without an arts related career. As it is, at a basic level, it gave me enough money to live and a whole heap of lovely, like minded friends. 

 

 

 

 

[OnePigeon]

I went to a local comprehensive primary and secondary school in a very unglamorous part of a Greater London borough in the 80s/90s. We had a school orchestra at primary school and I can still recall playing Pomp and Circumstance (our poor parents!) and a choir that performed Benjamin Britten songs and performed with other schools in London at the RAH.   We had an assembly where each term each class performed a little play for the rest of the school.  I wrote a story that the teacher turned into a play and I got to star in it.  We used to enter assembly to a piece of classical music which the teacher would then inform us about.  Our borough had a music department and building where you hired your instruments and they also had an orchestra and other opportunities for musical students.  At secondary school we also had an orchestra, a drama studio and lots of opportunities for creative writing and art.  With hindsight, I believe we had a head teacher who really valued the arts and ensured we all had a creative education, but the fact he was allowed to make this choice is what is so different from now.
 

I work in Primary education and have a child currently going through the system.  I have to say the opportunities for children to be creative is dire - even their creative writing is prescriptive, with certain sentence structures being dictated and the enforcement of strict planning before writing is allowed to happen.  Their music lessons, if they happen at all, are currently based on a bought in scheme which seems to favour (bad) pop music.  The arts/humanities subjects are squeezed in in the afternoons and occur once a week each.  The government’s obsession with English, Maths and STEM and the subsequent testing and constant threat of OFSTED is destroying the education system and most teaching staff have had enough.  

[zxDaveM]

the glaring distinction between an education and mere exam prep

 

[Roberta]

14 minutes ago, zxDaveM said:

the glaring distinction between an education and mere exam prep

 

Yet we had the dreaded 11+ and still managed to fit in a huge amount of creative activity.  There was more... yes a choir, choral speaking, so much! 

 

My bog standard primary (we had a shoe cupboard, for those whose lack of shoes meant difficulties with attendance,  I was the shoe monitor)  there were 45 of us in the class and every single person 'passed' to attend a grant maintained school, an LEA grammar or a grammar technical school.  Creativity brings rewards IMO.