Education, as a truly democratised model, is a subject close to my heart and central to my personal practice. These ideas and ideals invariably crash against the rocks of what is effectively a neoliberal institution trading in the liberal arts, working to the upper extent of government pricing guidance.
Being wedded to fiscal growth, and a doubling of its intake whilst working (informally) in line with the Robbins reforms of 1963, responsible for the significant expansion of public higher education — or ‘capitalism’ for short.
I work across two Diploma in Professional Studies (DPS) courses, one of which includes a limited student bursary scheme for students (LCC) wishing to fulfil the gap year. Much time is spent handling the volatility of students as they gain not only a reappraisal of their work readiness but their ability to work in an industry traditionally known for poor pay structures—particularly in the early phases of a graduates’ creative career.
The DPS CCW programme currently offers negligible (or no) financial support for low-income students, with limited financial aid available to students as a whole. I believe this absence, or oversight, regarding the financial implications of fulfilling an additional diploma gap year—on twenty per cent of the grant maintenance—adds a level of precarity that in of itself is an exclusionary practice, as I experience in the early phases of my new coordinator role.
Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture (1992) addresses the theme of cultural marginalization—the process whereby various groups are excluded from access to and participation in the dominant culture. It engages fundamental issues raised by attempts to define such concepts as a mainstream, minority, and “other,” and opens up new ways of thinking about culture and representation.
UAL’s AEM (Academic Enhancement Model) Decolonising pedagogy and curriculum (Year TBC) states that “Decolonising the curriculum, cannot be covered in isolated lessons or units, but becomes instead a default approach to organising teaching and learning.”
Research in attainment suggests decolonising the curriculum improves the student experience by identifying and dismantling barriers to access and success in Higher Education (Burke & McManus 2009, Finnigan & Richards, 2016 and Sabri, 2017)
At first glance, the above statements appear congruent in their acknowledgement of colonial structures and the requirements of a structured dismantling process. However, the deeply entrenched narratives of exclusion, ranging from cultural, geopolitical and ultimately fiscal are issues far from being addressed within the context of UAL:
“Broadly speaking, decolonising the curriculum interrogates the ongoing impact of legacies of colonisation and imperialism on knowledge production.”
Broadly speaking, this purports a [continually] race-blind, insofar as racialised difference and inequality is a product of social structures of disadvantage (John Holmwood, 1963). The report of fifty years ago are yet to be enacted—hence my student who had what it took, but could not afford what is required to enjoy a gap year of experiential learning as a number of her peers were able to do. [5]
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1. Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture (Russell Ferguson, Martha Gever, Trinh T. Minh-Ha, Cornel West. MIT Press, 11 Feb 1992 – Design – 448 pages)
2. Robbins, L. (1963). The Robbins Report: Higher Education Report of the Committee appointed by the Prime Minister under the Chairmanship of Lord Robbins. Available at: http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/robbins/robbins1963.html
Burke, P.J and McManus, J (2009) ‘Art for a few: Exclusions and misrecognitions in higher education admissions practices’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(5), pp. 699-712. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ abs/10.1080/01 596306.2011.620753 (Accessed: 24 July 2020)
Warner, C. Arboine, J. Morrison, C. Tran, D. (TBC). Decolonising pedagogy and curriculum. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0035/228986/AEM-Decolonising-pedagogy-and-the-curriculum-PDF-224KB.pdf
Holmwood, J. (2018) ‘Race and the Neoliberal University.’ In Bhambra, G. K., Gebrial, D. and Nişancıoğlu, K. (eds.) Decolonising the University. London: Pluto Press, pp.41.