Memo Winter 2009
Vienna, 14th December 2009
Dear reader,
this is the last EDUCULT-newsletter in this decade. Before we wish you Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year we would like to confront you with the recent turbulences at an increasing number of European universities shaking not only the traditional organisational structures but also our ideas what education will be like in future.
Universities are burning – Is there anything to learn out of it?
For weeks, students of Austrian universities have been occupying the lecture halls - obviously, an inspiring form of protest that has meanwhile spread out to other European countries. With a variety of more or less creative actions, the students want to draw attention to the widely unacceptable study conditions. They demand free access to universities (meaning an abolition of student fees for all students), deplore the decreasing availability of resources and criticise a growing “Verschulung” (meaning a rigid regimentation of study programmes, compromising academic freedom). The last-mentioned is mainly attributed to the uncritical transfer of the Anglo-American system of Bachelor and Master programmes through the Bologna Process, misleadingly claiming a better preparation for the job market.
One of the main slogans „For a free Education“ refers to the circumstance that universities – due to complex economic interdependence – as research institutions need to take corporate requirements more and more into consideration, whereas the idea of a comprehensive general education (Bildung) seems to get lost. Anyway, a separation into education and training (Bildung and Ausbildung) might seem somewhat anachronistic given the inflationary diversification of academic study opportunities. Therefore, one might be well advised to remember that the idea of a general education (Allgemeinbildung) we have grown so fond of turns out to be a chimera: like it or not, we have to admit that Humboldt’s university as a representation of the humanistic Bildungsideal has in fact functioned as an institution for the training of a privileged elite of future grammar school teachers, priests and doctors.
Cultural education only for grammar school pupils?
In recent discussions, the separation into general education (Allgemeinbildung) and vocational training is mainly criticised as a form of social exclusion. After all, the overwhelming majority of 80% of all pupils over 15 years goes to a vocational school – either as part of their vocational training alongside the training in a company, crafts enterprise or factory or full-time to a specialised school, e.g. for commerce, for engineering, for service,…In general – apart from a few so-called art schools, providing an education in design and media – arts and cultural education only plays a very marginal role at vocational schools. To deny them a general education (Allgemeinbildung) providing room for self-development means excluding them systematically from all forms of arts and cultural education.
In this context, it becomes more and more clear that the national and mostly also the Europen/international discourse about arts and cultural education limits itself to an outdated idea of Allgemeinbildung, which does not connect to the reality of young people and does not take into account the provision of skills and training for the job sector (not only, but also the growing sector of the creative industries).
EDUCULT tries to fill this discoursive (and also real-life) deficit with facts through a research project on the conditions for arts and cultural education in the vocational school sector.
Thus, we aim at bridging the traditional gap between general and vocational education, rethinking the concept of cultural education and finding adequate forms of realisation in the area of vocational training.
What we are missing at all school forms is the development of a critical mind, competences in negotiation and debate, moral courage and responsibility for the society – character traits that are relevant for all young people, no matter which school they choose. Cultural education – together with civil education – promises to help foster those qualities.
How to surpass the emotional barriers for cultural participation
Another central claim of the students is free access to universities. This relates to the political claim to provide every young woman and man, no matter what their social background might be, should have equal opportunities to choose the best possible education for herself or himself. Financial barriers should not be a factor of exclusion.
Maybe it is not only financial barriers that keep young people from deprived families from studying at a university. After all, free access to education is guaranteed in Austria since the 1970ies, with the political aim to provide academic education also for children of working class and farmer families – not only for the self-reproduction of upper middle class Bildungsbürger families.
Meanwhile, the social compound at universities is still very imbalanced. As we do not assume that a workers’ or farmer’s child does not have the same potential as a child of the intelligentsia, there must be other barriers hindering young people from developing the power to change their inherited cultural milieu.
In this context, I appreciated very much the input of Paul Collard (Creativity, Culture & Education /England) during the preparatory meeting for the UNESCO conference 2010 in Seoul. He pointed at recent research, quite strikingly showing that the family context cannot be underestimated when it comes to cultural participation. He was referring to research commissioned by the Department for Social Affairs in New Zealand, a text produced by Ross Mackay I can warmly recommend: Family Resilience and Good Child Outcomes
Political stakeholders in charge for universities need to come up with ideas other than reducing or abolishing inscription fees to effectively cultivate the full intellectual potential of the society .
This is also valid for the aspect of cultural participation. Free entrance to museums, as provided for young people in big Austrian museums as from the beginning of 2010, is only a start. The real factor for success will be as in how far we empower young people to cross their cultural barriers and venture on new paths. Or, in the words of Paul Collard: „Culture is about to accept the cultural circumstances we life in and to decide upon your own path into an open future“
Androulla Vassiliou - New European Commissioner for Education and Culture
It was quite a frustrating experience when the Austrian Minister for Science was nominated to become one of new commissioners. The main fear in the media was to become responsible for education and culture, commonly seen as of least importance.
While Johannes Hahn in the end became responsible for regional development (equipped with quite a lot of money) the new commissioner for education, culture, multilingualism and youth will be Androulla Vassiliou, the former commissioner for health. Mrs Vassiliou comes from Cyprus and is married with the former president of the Mediterranean island. After the nice words of Jan Figél we will see how this liberal politician will manage to end the marginalisation of education and culture on the European level.
World Alliance for Arts Education (WAAE): 2009 Summit 2009 World Summit Towards a Paradigm of Creative Education for the 21st Century. 30 October – 2 November, Newcastle/England
About a hundred representatives, mainly coming from the four umbrella organisations (IDEA, ISME, ISEA und WDA) from all over the world followed the invitation of Dan Baron to reflect common ground preparing the next UNESCO Word Conference for Arts Education, which will take place in Seoul/Korea in May. The meeting was organised around „Strategic Group Discussions“ tackling the issues „Evidence“, „Advocacy“ and „Research”.
Michael Wimmer took the opportunity to present a new ordinance of the Austrian Ministry for Education, Culture and the Arts on “Holistic-creative learning culture at schools” („Ganzheitlich-kreative Lernkultur in den Schulen” - German version) and to compare this cultural and education policy measure with similar initiatives in other countries.
Generally speaking we know that the events of the WAAE are characterized by an excessive optimism. Dan Baron regards arts education as a universal tool for the improvement of the global world order including climate change, antiracism, fighting poverty, maybe also population growth,…. To make this claim manifest the participants were among others confronted with singing and dancing Brazilian federal police officers. Consciously or unconsciously this presentation made believe that the use of artistic expression would be in a position to challenge existing power relations. No doubt, a beautiful illusion, but the danger lies in the political dimension as such well-meant impressions completely ignore that outside the narrow circles of arts education no one will take this kind of naivety seriously.
Find the details on the conference here
Cultural Policies in Europe and Turkey, 19 – 21 November 2009 Istanbul/Turkey
In 2010, Istanbul will be European Capital of Culture. In preparing this initiative its responsibles started an international debate on cultural policy issues with the hope to find common ground between Turkish and EU particularities. Therefore experts from the prominent cultural and educational institutions of Europe and Turkey were invited to take part in a symposium which was held on 19 - 21 November 2009 in Istanbul. The goal of the symposium was to elaborate the cultural policies in Turkey and Europe from various angles.
The symposium was the second on “culture” covering three different headlines. The first launched already last year with the title “What is European Culture?”; a symposium that examined the relation to be built between Istanbul and the European culture during the process of European Capital of Culture. As the second pillar this symposium discussed the details of “Cultural Policies in Europe and Turkey”. Finally the last symposium will deal with “Cultural Governance” in 2010. By the end of the symposia, all the submissions and discussions will be compiled in a book which will be published in two languages: English and Turkish.
Michael Wimmer was invited to present a paper in the first panel with the title: “European Policies for Culture”
Find the details of the programme here.
Symposium Arts Education – Culture Counts: Preparation for the UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education in Seoul 2010, 30 November 2009 – 01 December 2009, Berlin/Germany
Organised by the German UNESCO Commission some 50 representatives of cultural education institutions from across Europe and also from Canada (Larry O 'Farrell / holder of the first UNESCO Chair for Arts Education at Queen's University in Toronto) and from Korea (Kim Kwi-Bae/ president of the organizing committee of the second UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education next May in Seoul), met in Berlin. The event provided the opportunity to learn from the substantial progress made in implementing the UNESCO Road Map for Arts Education in a number of participating countries and to enable Prof. Eckart Liebau and his team, representing the newly established UNESCO Chair for Arts Education at the University of Erlangen to introduce his work.
The event tried to find a common formulation of a European policy document for Seoul, which – taking into account the manifold professional backgrounds of the participants – proved quite a tricky task. Nevertheless, this controversy led to an interesting and complex discussion. Prof. Liebau is currently working on a final formulation of a paper entitled "Arts Education - A contribution from European experts to the Seoul process" - contributions and additions are welcome.
Create. Innovate. Grow – Closing Conference of European Year of Creativity and Innovation, 16 – 17 December 2009, Stockholm/Sweden
Europe needs to increase its capacity for creativity and innovation for both social and economic reasons. The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, therefore, declared 2009 the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, EYCI. The main objective is to promote creativity and innovatio as tools for personal development and thus strengthening European competitiveness.
Sweden as current president of the EU is organising a closing conference of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation which will be held in Stockholm a few days before Christmas. The conference organisers are promising to offer a meeting place for policy makers. The outcome of the conference aims to promote a continued and strengthened work with creativity and innovation in Europe within different sectors and beyond traditional sector boundaries at different levels of decision making.
In this context we would like to remind our readers that the European Ambassadors of the European Year of Creativity a d Innovation have formulated a Manifesto which –among other commandments, promotes a strong, independent and diverse cultural sector that can sustain intercultural dialogue.
Action 1 in the same document calls for the expansion of the Structural Funds towards research and knowledge.The efforts will go on, with the aim of assembling evidence for greater, and more direct presence of culture in EU funding.
Find the details for the conference here.
We need your hints
In our work as an information intermediary for the international “arts and education community” we are more than ever dependent on your active participation. Therefore the quality of our information policy relies on tips, hints and information of those working in the field. It is your contributions that make sharing knowledge and experience possible.
We would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your support. We hope we have chosen some issues of interest for you and your work.
We wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Hoping to keep in contact also during the next year
Michael Wimmer and the team of EDUCULT
