Photography Education – Friend or Foe?
This piece is a reflection of the majority
of education I have witnessed over the last 20 years however I wish to state
there are islands of excellency still out there.
Like many professionals of my generation, I
have happy memories of my photographic education – a time where our passion and
love for the craft was deeply distilled into our very souls. Where an
environment of trust and self-discovery was nurtured by experienced and gifted
academics, many of whom were former professionals. But as the years have
drifted away – this nirvana like existence has also waned.
Over the last 30 years of my career, I have
employed 18 assistants from a range of backgrounds and experiences whom most
were on the verge of completing some form of academic course. In the early
years of employing assistants, I found their experiences of educational systems
to be very similar to my own and they had a clear vision, both creatively and
technically of where they fitted into the industry and how needed to develop to
reach their career goal. Latterly, this has not been the case.
Over the last 20 years, there has been an
explosion in the amount of degree courses offered in the UK – from around 15-16
to approximately 287 today. This coupled with year groups now ranging between
60-90 students per course, the question has to asked – is there a dilution in
the quality of education being given to these students and are the necessary
facilities in place to support this level of learning?
Firstly – why so many courses? Why create
some many places? Has education seen a need in industry that current
practitioners have missed or is this merely ‘education for education sake’? There
are now 5000 photography graduates a year. In the halcyon days of the 80s,
education was free at the point of delivery and grants were made readily
available to support the less financially viable students – now another
fundamental change has happened to the system, the blight of tuition fees.
Photography has always proven to be one of
the most popular academic subjects whether on introductory courses or at degree
level. During my short stint in FE, I remember enrollment night where over 200
adults would be patiently wait to be signed up to the latest digital ‘slr’
course whilst our colleagues in engineering and computing would be lucky to
sign up 5 students in a session. My fear is that bureaucrats above us, watched
intently the figures for creative courses and sought to profit from their
popularity.
When tuition fees were first introduced, at
around £2500 per annum, it was met with dismay by both the older academics and
industry practitioners – they saw this as the first step to potentially dilute
the ‘learning experience’ and the potential quality of graduates. Educating
more individuals didn’t necessarily mean the same quality could be
maintained. With the new injection of
money from students, group sizes gradually rose and also the pressure to
continue to raise course fees – the start for the ‘dash for cash’ had begun.
Around this time, another phenomena, the
career tutor, had started – hardly noticeable at first but with the rise in
courses and student numbers, it became more and more susceptible. These were
students who completed their degrees and then tried to make a living in
industry but after a period of 6 months had given up and had returned to
education for employment. Here, they were met with enthusiasm by their
employers, who needed additional staff to meet the demands of the new courses
and student numbers but a dangerous seed had also been sown. Without, the
rigors of industry experience and problem solving, these individuals were
deeply flawed in being able to provide the depth of knowledge to sufficiently
educate the next generation of students – many realizing their weaknesses
sought to distance their students and themselves from professional
practitioners so as not to lay bear this truth.
After almost 20 years, we have now 4-5
generations of these lecturers in the education system who have perpetuated this
cycle – and the level of trade craft amongst most educational institutions has
hit an all time low. This can be evidenced by the lack of contact most
establishments with industry organisations and their reticent to allow students
to have contact with established practitioners. Some institutions allow their
lecturers to forego the ‘pain of technical workshops’ and simply employ a technician
(former professional) to deliver the basic skills. In other cases, even this
doesn’t happen. A regular complaint of fellow professionals is that their new
assistant with a first class degree doesn’t even understand the basics of
‘depth of field/apertures’.
From my regular contact with current
students, most lecturers now seem to be driven by the ‘creative big idea’
coupled with group projects which are in some supposed to mirror current
industry practice. Many of the students, found it fascinating that the work
groups structured by the tutors always featured one or two of the top students,
with the rest of the group made up of weaker/non engaged students – they were
then marked as a whole regardless of individual input. Is the marking system
flawed – I shall return to that point later.
Another failing, regularly pointed out to
me by frustrated students, is the lack of contact time. 30 years ago, this was
typically 24 hours a week throughout the duration of the course – now it
typically ranges from 6-15 hours in the first year through to as little as 1
hour in the 3rd year. Some institutions even fabricate their
timetables – one for public digestion of 4-5 days contact a week and another
which is given to the current year groups of about 3-4 hours a week. This lack
of contact time can severely impact on students progression - no technical workshops, poor contextual
studies and almost no ‘crits’. As the eminent tutor Minor White frequently
stated, the ‘crit’ was the most important part of a young photographers journey
and should be attended to regularly. From my own experiences of one a week, it
fundamentally made me question my own direction, creativity and skill base.
Nowadays, I regularly hear from students that they might only experience a ‘crit’
was once every academic year and in one university , lecturers gave up all
together on ‘crits’ as they found them ‘too stressful’ to manage.
Another worry, is the distinct lack of
business studies in most courses (there are exceptions) and for the most part,
where it is touched upon, there is no depth or academic rigor given to it.
Students are left with no understanding of copyright, licensing, estimating or
invoicing and when do leave, they perceive it is acceptable to hand over all
their images from shoot to a client and re-asign the copyright. This
ill-informed practice is one of the greatest threats to the survivable of our
industry in any viable form.
We should not also forget the student and
their responsibilities in this. Many young people are desperate to obtain a
degree, either through peer or parental pressure and perceive photography as an
easy option that requires less work and academic rigor. This combined with the
rise of social media (apparent social addiction) amongst the young has led to a
disengagement of the larger part of the student body who feel through their own
limited social engagement (self- gratification) and their previous cognitive
learning environment where they were taught that they could not ‘fail’ - every assistance should be given by the staff,
regardless of deadlines, to enable them.
This new class of education consumer feels
owed by society and that higher learning, for the most part, must be spoon fed
piece meal to them in a saccharine form. Motivated learners are thus thrown
into environment of the masses where enthusiasm, self-motivation and creativity
are derided and even the tutors, encourage simplistic mimicking of established
artists through endless workbooks and banal artist statements. There is severe
reticent and fear amongst this cacophony of the crowd to divest the education
programming of their former years and embrace their own academic development.
Now, like lemmings, they seem content to be herded through the halls of higher
education without evening glancing sideways to see the opportunities they are
missing.
Then there is the ‘under belly’ of the
beast which education has become. The side few wish to discuss or mention, even
in darkened pubs at the end of a long night of liquid refreshment, the ‘culture
of education’. This is a world of narcissism, snobbery, fear and universal
loathing - where marking schemes are
regularly tampered with and certain ‘academics’ abuse their position with
venerable students. With the ‘dash for cash’ culture firmly embedded in the
education system and progressive governments determined to make their
educational figures look better than the last – a pervasive air has entered the
once hallowed halls of education where students are required to pass at any
cost. Whether it is through ‘cut and paste’ marking procedures from weaker
members of staff to out and out fraud where non-existent students are entered
into validated courses so additional funds can be drawn from the funding
bodies.
Tutors who refuse to comply with requests
from senior managers to pass failing students are bullied and ostracized with
threats of redundancy or reduced hours –
at one institution I witnessed a graphics tutor dictate individually to a group
of 4 students their essays so that they would pass. Whilst money is directly
linked to academic success, the system of marking will be constantly open to
financial abuse.
Other weaker academics, try to bolster
their flagging careers through publishing ‘reader books’ and then, ethical questionable,
write then into their own courses as required reading so that their own students
are forced to buy them and penalize those that don’t.
Other lecturers (thankful only a minority)
actions are far more questionable – where they use the trusted teacher/student
relationship to manipulate and abuse venerable students. I must question the
morality of any male lecturer (usually in their late 30s or 40s) who thinks its
acceptable to groom a 18/19 year old girl into a relationship and flaunt it
through institution trips and events. Even more worrying that when senior
management, at some intuitions hear about, that they turn a blind eye to it –
along with tutors photographing students in inappropriate manner as well. The educational
environment should be safe zone for young adults discovering their new found
freedoms not a play ground for the morally challenged failed academic.
At this stage, we need evaluate the future
of education and not only how it is delivered but what role it plays in
providing new entrants to industry. Is education an end result in itself –
providing the student with a set of transferable skills which will enable them
to work in a host of different industries (there is nothing wrong in this) but
I would ask that the tutors and institutions are honest with their potential
customers prior to them enrolling on their courses. It is nothing short of miss-selling to enroll
a student on a 3 year course if they believe they are going to educated to
become a working photographer/assistant if this is not the course’s ‘raison
d’être’. Please be honest with them – you owe them that and if you are
intending to meet this need, please put in place the required resources to make
this happen. As previously stated, there
are 5000 photography graduates a year in this country for only 120 vacancies
per year. It frightens professionals, like me, even with the apparent glut of
perspective employees, that there are so few that even have the basic
requirements to make them employable. All education, for the most part has been
seen to do, is line their pockets and leave unworldly students with £45,000 of
debt.
