Thursday, September 20, 2012

Vale, TAFE Visual Arts

I don't often get political on you, but honestly I'm in despair.  TAFE (Training and Further Education for those not in the know, i.e. education that fills the gap between the achievements of school and the ambitions of university) bore the brunt of some heavy New South Wales cost-cutting last week with the announcement of massive slashes in budgets and a withdrawal of governmental support for Visual Arts courses (which includes ceramics and sculpture) on the basis that such courses don't lead to employment.

On the one hand NSW TAFE Executive has been preparing TAFE institutions for the promise of such cuts for a while and we're all in the middle of strategic initiatives designed to ensure that we're all lean, mean machines delivering high quality education outcomes on minimal budgets - you know the sort of lingo - it removes the listener from the reality of a passionate and inspirational teacher making a real difference in a classroom.  On the other hand we weren't expecting the changes until 2014.  Ouch.

Visual Arts copped it hardest: Visual Arts courses will no longer attract State subsidies, putting them well beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest of students who might be able to pay "commercial rates".  But in a double-whammy, the State government also announced that under the new "entitlement funding model" where the money goes to the student who can now wave a 'voucher' that 'entitles' them to a subsidised course, students will have NO entitlement to a Visual Arts course.  Ouuchhhhh.

Working at TAFE this week has been, shall we say, difficult.  We're all in shock as the reality of the new situation sinks in.  We're all looking at each other, knowing that redundancies are on the way for the lucky few with a permanent (or temporary) employment contract, while the rest of us part-time casual teachers will simply fade out without any compensatory payments.  Meanwhile we're supposed to "remain as positive as possible" for the sake of our poor students, most of whom are now stumbling through their courses knowing that there is no possibility of attempting a higher level of learning next year.  Bang!  The door has shut, despite much trumpeting about the value of "Creative Industries"" in contributing $20 billion to Australia each year.  Bang!  Who cares?  TAFE will be reduced to providing courses in response to identified skills shortages only, with the possible optional extra of becoming a jobs brokerage.

I've written to my local State and Federal MPs, of course, together with party leaders, opposition education spokespeople and the like but I haven't received so much as an acknowledgement of receipt so far.  If you care about arts education in New South Wales you may be motivated to follow this link and print off a page to get a local petition going, since on-line petitions - whilst valuable - aren't what forces the government to raise the issue in Parliament.

I'm actually too tired to argue with you about the value of the arts, the role of TAFE, and just how wrong this all is.  I feel thoroughly demoralised, and I'm remembering - with a wry smile - how happy I was only a few weeks ago to think that next year we would be a two-income family again.  Anyway, I'll be 'trying to be positive' tomorrow as I teach printmaking to a Diploma group that has just found out it will have to fork out a LOT extra in order to complete their second year of study - if, that is, they feel it's worth it now - if they wish to leave TAFE with a piece of paper that says they're qualified to Diploma level in Visual Arts and Contemporary Craft.

4 comments:

Vicki said...

Gosh what is going on in Australia and its relationship with the arts...Queensland and now NSW...hope no other states follow suit. Very sad news and so shortsighted.

ronnie said...

one thing that I found puzzling about the whole scheemozle was the rationale that funding art in TAFE was a double up - visual arts is something offered by universities (federal funding) so why should we (state gov) fund the same thing....

which may make sense in a city setting (obviously where the pollies hang out and do all their decision making and the majority of voters live) --- but what about regional centres where TAFEs are the principal tertiary education sector? smaller places (and I'm thinking of my part of the world... and I suspect yours would be similar sara) will be hit hard.

The other flawed reasoning that is being dragged out and not spoken about is that idea that universities indeed do have all the various disciplines up and healthily running - the truth is that vis arts in uni has been stripped down to bare essentials for years (I know for example that most have had to close their ceramics depts - if indeed they had one.... glass, printmaking, specialist sculpture have all been drained away -- shut up --- abandoned.)

University vis arts these days the emphasis is the theory of art NOT the practice (which is what tafe is often so great at providing...)

and lastly - there were 2 things that I thought were especially interesting

1. NSW teachers (ie teacher fed union members) were guaranteed their jobs weren't in jeopardy

2. NSW police were given a pay rise in the same week as the education cuts

call me cynical but I think that says a lot...

(ps I've found online petitions are pretty damned effective - an online petition got the super trawler stopped.....)

dinahmow said...

We keep hearing about this need for jobs.So...please explain how cutting jobs helps the overall situation!
Once again, it will fall to volunteers to take up the slack while retrenched workers join the dole queues...

Julie Hutchinson said...

Ohhhhh Sara I'm just so.....sad, angry, broken hearted. I feel so victimised also. How dare they! Of course in some political circles it is essential that only the wealthy have an artistic voice...

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