Senate Inquiry into the Government’s Higher Education Support Amendment Bill 2020
INTRODUCTION
The National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) is a coalition of peak arts and arts education associations who represent arts educators across Australia. NAAE members are: Art Education Australia (AEA), Australian Dance Council – Ausdance, Australian Society for Music Education (ASME), Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM), Drama Australia, Music Australia, National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA)
NAAE’S POSITION
The National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) opposes the Federal Government’s proposed university fees reforms and calls for an equitable tertiary education system that does not target creative arts degrees with increased fees on the basis that this area of study does not lead to employment.
THE EVIDENCE
Supporting professional creative arts training translates to an investment in a robust creative industry which makes a vital contribution to both Australia’s economy and to community social well-being as evidenced most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Creative skills have a substantial influence on the economy. Australia’s creative and cultural industries contribute $111.7bn to Australia’s GDP, representing some 6.5% of the economy (Australian Government, 2018, p. 9). Until the pandemic these industries were employing 600,000 people including 50,000 professional artists. Creative employment is growing at nearly twice the rate of the Australian workforce and it is highly likely to continue to grow into the future (Throsby & Petetskaya, 2017). The Australian Government Report Creative Skills for the Future Economy (2019) identified that, “as the trend to automation continues, expanding industries will increasingly rely on creative skills” (p. 1). Australia does need an innovation policy, but it needs to be broader than STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) fields. Creative jobs are transforming the Australian economy.
The government should focus on education and training that supports the economic and cultural sustainability of creative industries. Although tertiary students may follow their passion when enrolling in discipline area courses, it is not fair or reasonable to charge more for a discipline area that often does not have a commensurate salary equivalent, such as medicine. The argument that tertiary students do not factor in the costs of creative arts degrees when electing to pursue higher education in the arts does not acknowledge that tertiary students are now being presented with an unprecedented increase in fees for arts degrees. Further, incentivising other degrees will exacerbate an unevenly skilled workforce, ultimately costing students more when they eventually return to the degree from which they initially intended to graduate.
Claiming that arts degrees do not lead to workforce careers is limited thinking and is not correct. These qualifications enable graduates to undertake a wide variety of employment, as creative artists and in areas such as teaching, community arts, health and wellbeing, and in research. Artists often enrol in degrees such as a Master of Teaching, and in combination with their specialised arts study also include the Humanities as their second teaching area such as English, languages, history, geography, law, commerce and social sciences. In the current COVID-19 pandemic situation, teachers are described as essential workers. The proposed fee increase in creative arts degrees could have cascading implications for the recruitment and retention of secondary and senior secondary arts teachers, and be detrimental to the breadth and depth of their specialisations.
Australia's arts industry is already in a precarious situation as a result of public investment not keeping pace with industry growth, public policy not aligning with industry needs and the impact of COVID-19 and last summer’s fires, storms and floods. As evidenced in the current COVID-19 pandemic, the community has sought solace from the arts to make sense of these unprecedented events, with increased rates of participation and access to a range of online events generously provided for free by arts practitioners, galleries and a range of other cultural institutions. Artists and arts organisations also continue to come forward at catastrophic times to donate their work and their efforts in creating impactful fundraisers that collect millions of dollars for those in need (NAVA, 2020).
There are many people in leadership positions in Australia who benefited from free access to university education enacted in the 1970s. Previously there was a two-pronged system for school-leavers by which students at the end of Year 10 had the option to take up a trade apprenticeship through vocational education. Over the past three decades these two clear feasible and affordable pathways have merged to become a fee-focused university education, leaving students without alternative pathways.
The Review of Australian Higher Education (‘The Bradley Review’; 2008) recommended increasing the proportion of the population with a higher education qualification with the intention that 40% of 25—34 year olds would have obtained a bachelor-level qualification by this year. One of the ways this can be encouraged is by ensuring that a range of degrees and options is available in order to support the diversity of careers and cultures needed for a balanced Australian society in the twenty-first century. A competitive Australian workforce requires innovative and creative thinkers from a range of discipline areas to contribute to informed perspectives and approaches to national and global issues.
A number of reports (see The Heart of the Matter 2013; Humanities Graduates and the British Economy: The Hidden Impact 2013; Australia’s Future Workforce? CEDA 2015), argue that creativity and innovation will be key to 21st Century economies, particularly in developing responses to multi-perspective or ‘wicked problems’ (Rittel and Weber 1973). These reports note that in the knowledge economy, new workplace skills and the fostering of an innovative, agile and robust workforce will prove to be vital to national and international creative economies.
A significant Oxford University study by Frey and Osborne, The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation? examined 702 occupations and found that 47% of employment is at risk (Frey and Osborne 2013). They concluded by stating that “as technology races ahead, low-skill workers will reallocate to tasks that are non-susceptible to computerisation – i.e., tasks requiring creative and social intelligence. For workers to win the race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills” (2013, p. 45, emphasis added).
The Creative Arts do not only foster the development of artistic skills for art making – they reinforce the fact that they also teach skills in collaboration, innovation, experimentation, resilience, confidence and communication. Recent Australian research has found that students who engage in The Arts do better academically in their non-Arts subjects (like English, Mathematics and Science) than those students who do not participate in The Arts (Martin et al., 2013).
In 2013 The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published an extensive review of Arts education, Arts for Art’s Sake? The report focused on the relationship between The Arts and Innovation. The report found that:
Arts graduates are likely to have the complex set of skills that are useful in highly innovative occupations. Innovation usually tends to focus on skills in science and engineering. However, artistic skills are often involved in the innovation process. The analysis of two international databases of tertiary education professionals (Reflex and Hegesco) by Avvisati, Jacotin and Vincent-Lancrin (2013) shows that arts graduates are among the most likely to have a highly innovative job five years after graduation. Fifty-four percent of arts graduates have a highly innovative job dealing with some type of innovation. They rank second for product innovation, and they come fifth and seventh for innovation of technology and innovation of knowledge. (Winner 2013, p. 17).
This study also suggested that The Arts “develop a bundle of skills that matter for innovation.” (Winner 2013, p. 18).
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Demand for creative skills is growing across multiple industries. Education contexts across all levels contribute significantly to the nurturing of the creative skills that underpin the arts industry and our wider cultural landscape. The impact of much higher fees for arts courses will likely reverberate in the schooling sector, impacting on student choices of their future university study, including in the arts and arts education. “Around one in seven of those employed in the occupations expected to grow most quickly over the next five years holds a creative qualification. Many of the industries that have grown the fastest—in terms of economic output—employ workforces with relatively high shares of creative qualifications” (Australian Government, 2019, p. 13).
NAAE’S RECOMMENDATION
In order to ensure that the Australian workforce is equipped with the much-needed creative skills to manage a challenging future, we strongly recommend that the Government does not increase fees for Creative Arts study as part of the proposed university reform.
References:
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. (2013). The Heart of the Matter. Cambridge, MA: American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved from http://www.humanitiescommission.org/_pdf/hss_report.pdf
Australian Government, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (2018). Arts Sector Fact Sheet – Cultural and creative activity in Australia 2008-09 to 2016-17. Canberra, Australia. Retrieved from https://www.communications.gov.au/documents/arts-sector-fact-sheet-cultural-and-creative-activity-australia-2008-09-2016-17
Australian Government, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. (2019). Creative skills for the future economy. Canberra, Australia. Retrieved from https://www.communications.gov.au/departmental-news/creative-skills-future-economy
Bradley, D., Noonan, P., Nugent, H., & Scales, B. (2008). Review of Australian Higher Education. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra, Australia.
CEDA - Committee of Economic Development of Australia. (2015). Australia’s future workforce? Sydney, Australia: CEDA. Retrieved from http://adminpanel.ceda.com.au/FOLDERS/Service/Files/Documents/26792~Futureworkforce_June2015.pdf
Frey, C. B., & Osborne, M. A. (2013). The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation? Oxford, England: University of Oxford. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf
Kreager, P. (2013). Humanities Graduates and the British Economy: The Hidden Impact. Oxford, England: University of Oxford. Retrieved from http://torch.ox.ac.uk/sites/torch/files/publications/Humanities%20Graduates%20and%20the%20British%20Economy%20-%20University%20of%20Oxford.pdf
Martin, A., Mansour, M., Anderson, M., Gibson, R., Liem, G., & Sudmalis, D. (2013). The role of arts participation in students’ academic and nonacademic outcomes: a longitudinal study of school, home, and community factors. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(3), 709–727. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032795
National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA). (2020). Industry Advisory Note: COVID-19 Response. National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA). Sydney, Australia. Retrieved from https://visualarts.net.au/advocacy/industry-advisory-note-covid-19-response/
Rittel, H., & Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Inc.
Throsby, D. & Petetskaya, K. (2017). Making Art Work: An Economic Study of Professional Artists in Australia. Australia Council for The Arts. Sydney, Australia. Retrieved from www.australiacouncil.gov.au/research/making-art-work/
Winner, E., Goldstein, T. R., Vincent-Lancrin, S. (2013). Arts for art’s sake? Overview, OECD Publishing. www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/ART%20FOR%20ART%E2%80%99S%20SAKE%20OVERVIEW_EN_R3.pdf