2 years ago I wrote this blog about how the education system was killing vocational training. Then last year I expanded on this even further in this article this was a matter of weeks before announcing that my own college was going to be a casualty of the underfunding of vocational courses. Now by some miracle, we survived (thanks to a huge surge of industry support and some very generous benefactors), but the issue of funding loomed ever larger today when ALRA announced that it was closing. Obviously, I felt a sense of deja vu.
Firstly my heart goes out to the students, staff, and graduates of ALRA. Losing your 'safe place' and your 'college' is disorientating, to say the least. I remember telling our lot so vividly. It ranks up there as one of the worse days of my life BUT we did ensure that all of our staff were paid, our freelancers had been given lots of notice to look for other work, and our students (like ALRA's actually) were all guaranteed a place to continue their training together, the big difference was that our students were TOLD this information in person by myself and the Board. We were there for the hard part. We owed it to our students to tell them in person and to help them to find some satisfactory closure to the whole sorry episode. They could contemplate the news in 'their' building. We remained present online. We didn't run away - we confronted the ugly head-on.
I don't know what happened at ALRA but it's wrong that freelancers are left with monies owing, and it's wrong that some staff found out on social media. It's wrong that their students were told this information in an email when they weren't even on-site. That's a shitty way to treat your community. Even if they had been locked out of their building - call the students to a "town hall" meeting in a park or something, you can't just vanish.
ALRA is the 2nd drama college of the supposedly elite Federation of Drama Schools to suddenly close. Such an 'elite' organisation that they still haven't updated their website to note that Drama Centre London closed 2 years ago.
The Federation plays off the fact that they all USED to be 'accredited' colleges, in fact, lots of people still use the term, but actually no course is accredited anymore, that ended with Drama UK - the parent organisation of the Feds. In fact other than lauding themselves as the elite there is very little to celebrate within their tight-knit little group these days. How many of their gang got called out for institutional racism back in 2020? How many of the 'gang' have got ongoing investigations around abuse? Some investigations have already concluded and have been found to be guilty. What has the Federation done about it? Absolutely nothing.
As colleges fold they do nothing to help the students, the safety net comes out from the world of social media where everybody tries to help everybody else. It's a nice by-product of the industry - empathy.
The Federation say that their mission statement is this:
"To engage in activities, projects and discussions collectively and individually that enable diverse groups of people to receive excellent training for the contemporary profession in all its aspects.
To work with other schools with shared vision, values and approaches in the training to share current best practice and identify opportunities for change and enhancement in the future.
To work with the industry and professional stakeholders to ensure that the training experiences provided allow graduates to enter and sustain professional careers with a current, adaptable and expert skillset.
To be an identified presence in public discussion of both the challenges and values of conservatoire training."
It seems to me that they've done none of this. It's a group of old boys navel-gazing and missing the big picture. It's not even myopic, it's blind!
Vocational training is so hard to fund as it's expensive. You can't sit 100 people in a lecture theatre and pay for one person to teach them all, you need to work in smaller groups, with a lot of contact hours to cover all the relevant work. Small groups, and high contact hours are very expensive.
Most colleges sold out years ago when they went down the degree route. I've shouted about this for years but they were all too busy staring at what they thought was the golden goose, however, their myopic vision failed to see the Trojan horse. Validating universities are big business, they want value for money and our training courses just don't provide that.
I spent months exploring this option but failed to see how it could be financially viable to ethically train a group of performers with the financial restrictions of a degree. Something had to give, and actually, a lot of colleges have been 'giving' a lot. A reduction in contact hours, an additional charge, additional students to make up the deficit (which actually only increases the debt in the end as you need more studios to house them. . which means that you end up trying to get more students to fill the half-full studios, and so it continues).
The books don't balance at degree level - that's the takeaway. I fear that ALRA might be a victim of that simple equation.
ALRA won't be the last college to close, we'll see courses closing or reducing in numbers (be that student numbers to reduce the loss, or contact hours to reduce the spending), we'll see independent colleges selling up and joining large universities or large conglomerate organisations.
UK drama training used to be elite - now at best it's functional, because the people that cared, the professionals, are no longer running the show. The accountants took over and the big boys aka the Federation welcomed them in with open arms because they never looked outside of themselves.
Shame on them, and shame on the organisations that have pandered to them (and yes, Equity and Spotlight I'm looking at you again on this).
The biggest shame of all today though is on our industry as we've seen yet again how the 'person' has been lost in the commercial. An increasing pattern of behaviour that does nothing to encourage people to stay in the industry.
The old-school camaraderie is still around though - social media demonstrates that when we hit a crisis. It's just a shame that this lasts for the briefest of moments before the next crisis hits.
We need an urgent review of vocational training in the UK. We need to share good practice. We need to accept that the death knell is tolling for all independent colleges unless something drastic changes. We need to value vocational training, not sell it to the highest bidder for a bigger studio and a branded theatre.
No comments:
Post a Comment