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Drama Education - Too Academic?Dateline: 28th April, 2002 The lead story in the latest edition of "The Stage" carries the headline Drama Courses 'Too Academic'. It reports concern that the vocational aspect of Drama training is being sacrificed to the academic in courses which are accredited by universities. It's now about twenty years since many drama schools decided to offer a degree in Drama rather than their own diplomas. The reason for this change was simple. A student going to a university or starting a degree course was entitled to a student grant. This covered at least the tuition fees and could also, depending upon the student's income (or his/her own, if (s)he was a mature student) cover living expenses. These grants were mandatory. However a student embarking upon a drama or dance course could only apply for a discetionary grant. Given at the discretion of the local education authority, these grants varied considerably in value and, indeed, as they were discretionary, were not always available, although most LEAs did try to give all applicants something. Then came the cost-cutting of the eighties: local councils received less money from central government and their ability to raise money locally was restricted by so-called rate-capping. In other words, they were told how much they could charge the rate-payers (for non-Brits, the rates were the local property tax), and councils which exceeded the cap were surcharged and individual councillors could even be "fined". (Then the inequable poll tax was introduced, but that's a different story!) One of the very first casualties were the discretionary grants. There was an immediate fall-off in applications to drama schools as would-be students found they had to finance all the costs of their courses. In the ensuing panic, many drama schools decided to link up with local universities and to offer a BA degree in Drama. Since then, the complaint is, a number of essential vocational course ingredients were either lost or minimised in favour of a more academic, essay-writing approach. Elements such as fight training and voice training were among the first to be affected, and now many people within the industry are complaining that graduates of these courses are not properly prepared for a stage career, although they are very knowledgeable about history and theory. There is a real problem there, and "The Stage" is right to draw attention to it, but unfortunately it isn't just at this level that there is a problem: it extends all the way down to the very first step on the ladder, the GCSE. The GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) is the examination taken by all students at the age of 16, the time when they are legally able to leave school and take a full-time job (if they can find one!). Offered at this level are examinations in Dance, Drama, Expressive Arts and Music, but they cannot be considered to be vocational courses, for a large percentage of the marks are for written work. Take the Expressive Arts course offered by AQA (an exam board), for example. For both coursework and the so-called "controlled test", which is coursework done in exam conidions over a fixed period of tme, 50% of the marks are awarded for the written component. A student who decides, for instance, to do a piece of music theatre in which (s)he sings and acts, not only has to rehearse and perform, but also has to keep records of the rehearsal process to prove that (s)he has rehearsed! If (s)he has not kept a record of when rehearsals were and what was done in them, the (s)he is assumed not to have rehearsed at all and so gets no marks for that section of the project. Then (s)he has to evaluate the process - in written form, of course. In the new syllabus, introduced in this academic year for the current Year 10 students, (s)he also has to write no less than four pieces of critical analysis (500 words each) of existing art works for each of two projects, and relate his/her own work to these pieces. The effect of all this is that a student who is a talented performer but who is not academically inclined will find it impossible to get a top grade, even though (s)he may be a superb actor / singer / dancer / whatever and is likely to end with with a similar grade to someone who is academically able but has no performing talent at all! Enter the GNVQ. This is the General National Vocational Qualification. It's aimed at post-16 education and is offered at three levels: foundation, intermediate and advanced, the levels being self-explanatory. It's a much more practical course, but there is still a lot of emphasis on written work, although not as much as in the GCSE. A demand occured for the GNVQ to be available to schools but, because at foundation and intermediate levels it was the equivalent of four GCSEs, not schools could find the time to fit it into their timetable. Enter Part 1 GNVQ, a cut-down version which is the equivalent of two GCSEs and so much more manageable for schools. A part one in the Performing Arts GNVQ was introduced a couple of years ago. However for some reason last year the government decided that GNVQs were not the wodnerful thing they had been telling us they were, and so the are to be phased out. Exit the Part 1GNVQ. Enter the Vocational GCSE, an improvement - so we are told - on the GNVQ. But there's not going to be a VGCSE (how education loves acronyms!) in the Performing Arts, just the already existing GCSEs (go back four paragraphs!) . We can look forward to a time when we have a generation of actors who can write wonderful essays about acting but can't actually do the job that well, because they haven't been properly trained. But there'll be fewer than there might otherwise have been, because talented performers are being held down because they can't write essays. You don't have to be able to play Hamlet, just write about him. You might like to express your opinion on drama training in our Forum. Articles Indices: |
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