SSC calls for 'a consumer revolution' in art and design education

Art and design educators are being urged to embrace the online consumer revolution and apply it to higher education.
 
Students embarking on long and sometimes costly degree courses need to be better informed about their eventual employment prospects and equipped with the skills to operate effectively at work.
 
"The onset of university tuition fees and increasingly differential fees will mean students seeing themselves not just as learners but as consumers too", says Tom Bewick, Chief Executive of Creative & Cultural Skills.
 
He was addressing a conference this week organised by the Council for Higher Education in Art attended by university tutors, professors and deans of faculty from across the UK, as well as representatives of the network of Subject Centres in Art, Design and Media.  David Kester from the Design Council, a partner in the Design Skills Advisory Panel work with Creative & Cultural Skills, presented a profile of the complimentary work being undertaken by the Design Council.
 
"Today's students are making probably one of their most important and arguably most expensive investment decisions of their lives - other than perhaps buying a property. That's not to say that education for its own sake is a bad thing. Of course I want to see fine art degrees, medieval history courses and people pursuing higher education for the love of learning, which may or may not be connected directly to the labour market," said Mr Bewick.
 
"But in degree courses that purport to offer a route into the creative and cultural industries, the pressure will mount on institutions to provide better information on what the return on student investment is likely to achieve. The value of degrees- including the long-term employment outcomes of graduates as well as what employers think of courses and students entering their employment- will inevitably, in my view, become a feature of the system in the coming years."
 
"There are over 50,000 students on art and design courses in higher education at any one time. This number is set to rise. Econometric studies have found that graduates from these courses are currently among the most likely to be unemployed following graduation. The return on investment in terms of the "wage premium" of such courses is also much lower than other degree routes such as law, accountancy and medicine."
 
"The paradox of this seemingly over-supply of entrants is that employers in survey after survey say that graduates do not have the right skills. Last February, The Times for example ran a front-page headline: 'Graduates unfit for work, say top firms'.  In Design Week recently, an exasperated employer wrote a letter saying he was sick and tired of getting inappropriate phone calls, e-mails with PDF attachments portfolios, badly spelt-letters and CVs from graduates who haven't a clue about the design business or what we do."
 
Mr. Bewick urged a more collaborative approach between industry and education in future, saying it was in the interests of all concerned to bring about far better careers information than is presently available.
 
He cited a recent survey of 6,000 students undertaken by the Higher Education Academy which found that 30 per cent of students admitted knowing nothing or very little about their degree programme and that up to 40 per cent of these students were more likely to drop out than those who were better informed.
 
Delegates were also given a sneak preview of the Creative Knowledge Lab web concept that the Sector Skills Council is looking to launch at the end of the year. The portal will provide industry approved careers advice and information and will seek to address many of the issues highlighted by Mr. Bewick's speech.