Funding, the Arts, and 30 Years

At the beginning of every year, the Australian Government allows cabinet records from 30 years ago to be released to the public. Usually these sorts of records would be of no interest to me, certainly in past years, but after the interesting decision made by Arts Minister, Peter Garrett, to cut funding to one of the largest institutions of music in this country it made me reflect on a decision made by another minister 30 years ago. So how does a decision made by a minister 30 years ago, in a completely different field, have any relevance to the recent issues of the treatment of the arts today?

In 1978, it was recognised that Australia was on the decline in the area of sport. The lack of medals picked up in the 1976 Olympics and poor showing in the 1978 Commonwealth games (finishing third on the medal tally behind England and Canada) caused concern for then Sports Minister, Ray Groom. Other countries that were having notable success was due to their own governments putting resources and funding into their programs. Groom told cabinet that these below-par performances caused ‘wide-spread community concern’, because ‘failure in international competition damages our self-image and national pride’. While the issue was deferred at first, we can only see the difference that the funding and resources for these sports programs has done for sporting competitions in many areas and codes.

It’s quite staggering that the government of 30 years ago identified a key problem like this and made the choices to rectify the mistakes made. However the area of sport does have a bigger stage compared to arts and music events. We will see a lot more events on television and larger sections of newspapers dedicated to sport over the arts. It has been that way for a long time. Yet the arts are not a forgotten area but feels so often that it is hanging by a thread, straying near a very sharp blade. It is not the fact that we are lacking in performance like the sporting groups of the late seventies, but the cutting of funding from different governments, limited advertising, and poor education structure is beginning to take its toll.

I was gutted when Kevin Rudd first came out and began promoting his “Digital Education Revolution”. The package sounded quite impressive targeting specific subjects/areas of education, giving everyone as much of a right to succeed in the areas that the nation was falling behind in, and to provide secondary students with their own laptop computer. To the average person of course they would be thinking that this was either a great proposal or one of dreams with the provision of laptops. For those people aware of the history of public education, they would know that all this DER is about dressing up public education in a frock with the latest electronic gizmo that children will leap at. In terms of arts and their relevance to education, there would be nothing in it for us. The reason I say this is because the education systems of today focus on mandating that academic success is the measure of intelligence, which is completely contrary to the arts. For the best explanation of how much public education and its academic system is killing the arts, I would recommend watching Sir Ken Robertson’s talk at the TED web site (www.ted.com).
        I would say that there is no stand out difference between public and private education except for the price of education and the quality of teaching. At the end of the day, both public and private students are learning similar content fulfilling the same goals dictated by the syllabi set by the states and are fighting for the same marks to earn that magical UAI to get into university courses.
        A point I’ll make on the side in reference to UAIs, in 2002 it was decided that music courses at tertiary level (certainly in NSW, not sure about outside of the state), such as the Bachelor of Music, would require a UAI for entrance into the course. Prior to this, the UAI was not viewed as being absolutely necessary with entry being based on the skill level and studies at high school or through national programs (e.g. AMEB). Today there are creative and artistically intelligent students being prevented from entering tertiary courses on the basis of being determined unintelligent or below standard by academics in other subjects that would usually be irrelevant to what they wish to study.

The greatest embarrassment that will be suffered is when students that are wishing to undertake further intensive arts studies have to be told they need to go overseas a lot sooner rather than later due to the lack of support not from the institutions but from the government. While it is common for some students undertaking intensive arts studies to study in Europe or the United States, it shouldn’t necessarily be an avenue that everyone has to take.

The proud fact of Kevin Rudd putting a former rock star in his cabinet line up is beginning to show that perhaps it wasn’t the wisest decision, especially when he is in charge of the Arts portfolio. Two and a half million dollars is withdrawn from the biggest music institution in Australia, and we don’t even know where the money is going to go. It’s not a simple case of taking away the money and then eventually putting money back into the arts programs to state that the government is investing in it. It didn’t happen in 1978 when the sports programs weren’t succeeding, due to the lack of the resources. In this era, the Rudd government is going to cripple arts programs if funding and resources are going to be withheld without any plans or initiatives to establish further programs or projects. This is going to place a much greater responsibility on teachers, tutors and supporters to keep the arts programs running and to entice more people to get behind these projects in the community.

"We need to make sure that there's a more effective, better directed way of producing this kind of training for these elite classical musicians. I'm not going back on the decision in any way" – Peter Garrett, ABC News Nov. 7 2008.

EDIT: 5:22 PM January 14, 2009