Before 10 October this year, I would have been hard pressed to name the federal Education Minister. Turns out it’s Senator Simon Birmingham of the good state of South Australia. In a press release issued on that day, the Senator outlined the tertiary courses “expected to attract funding support under the new … VET Student Loans program.”
As it turned out, a large clutch of creative industries qualifications had been left off that (draft) list. This list itself is heavy with performing and visual arts and digital media courses, but notably also includes a Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship for Creatives.
Given the media brouhaha which followed, Sen. Birmingham is probably wishing he’s drawn a red line through these sentences, tapped out by an earnest media officer.
We want to ensure that the courses that Australian taxpayers are subsidising and that we are encouraging students to study, will optimise employment outcomes. Currently there are far too many courses that are being subsidised that are used simply to boost enrolments, or provide ‘lifestyle’ choices, but don’t lead to work.
A number of commentators in the creative industries arced up. Not just in response to suggestion that these courses would not be eligible for student loans (which, after the Government’s unpopular changes to arts funding, they could be forgiven for seeing as another attack on arts and culture). But also to the fact that he described, albeit indirectly, a career in the creative industries as a “lifestyle choice”.
It’s a loaded phrase. In 2015, then Prime Minister Tony Abbot, described people living in remote Indigenous communities in Western Australia as having made a “lifestyle choice”. He said, “what we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices”. So Sen. Birmingham managed to suggest that the chance of landing a job in photography, fashion, dance or social media marketing, was as remote as a village in the Kimberley. And neither are worth subsidising.
(What is a “lifestyle choice” anyway? At first, it seems to be something of a passive aggressive slight. “You’ve made a choice that benefits your lifestyle, rather than one which builds something worthwhile, like having smashed avocado for breakfast instead of saving for a deposit on a stratospherically overpriced one-bedder in Camperdown”. But it also has an accusatory air suggesting selfishness; “you’ve brattishly chosen a path whereby you can’t contribute to economic good of the nation. You should have made a different choice, a more constructive choice, like getting an MBA and working for a lobby group and a political party, like Sen. Birmingham. We’d have been happy to subsidise that.”)
It’s seems to be the by-product of a policy mindset which sees entrepreneurship in the creative industries as a pipe dream. Presumably there are other courses which will attract the student loans which encompass entrepreneurship, just not in creative industries.
Is entrepreneurship in some industries a surer bet than others? Surely the innate qualities of a successful entrepreneur mean that they will find a commercial opportunity in whichever field they choose? What this seems to suggest is a hierarchy of entrepreneurship; from those worth subsidising to those which are not.
Subsequently, the Minister went directly to arts industry website ArtHub to pour oil on troubled waters.
Of the 478 courses that will no longer be supported 119 are in management and commerce, 149 are society and culture courses like the Diploma of Life Coaching and 149 are in health-related fields such as veterinary Chinese herbal medicine. In comparison, 57 arts-related courses did not make our proposed list and 29 of those have no students at all…
Contrary to the impression given by some commentators, VET Student Loans will support studies across a number of different genres and roles related to the arts, including graphic design and visual arts, screen and media, live production, photography and music industry…
The narrative tactics here are clear. You haven’t had it as bad as management and commerce! (Sure in numbers, but what about as a proportion to the total number of courses?) We’re still subsidising lots of creative things! (Just not performing arts, dance, writing or entrepreneurship for creatives) You wouldn’t want us to fund craziness like veterinary Chinese herbal medicine! (But what if my cat just doesn’t respond to Western pharmaceuticals?)
But later on in the same article we get a sense of what the real problem is.
We know there are job opportunities in the arts for current and future students – but the demand for graduates is not significant enough to justify funding every single arts course, just as it isn’t in many other industries.
It’s the demand for graduates which designates whether something’s a lifestyle choice or not. And in a way, the decision to redirect funding makes perfect sense; why oversupply an industry with graduates it cannot support?
But there’s another implication here; that a career in the creative industries means finding a job, not creating that job for yourself. It’s another tacit indication of that mindset which sees creative entrepreneurship as a fanciful dream.
Creative Business Leadership 