Opinion with John Rainer
John Rainer
Thursday, September 1, 2022
'Put Drama on the agenda'
Recently, a number of disturbing press announcements of cuts to university arts courses have appeared in the UK media. A typical example is Wolverhampton University, which plans to cut 138 courses, including many Drama and theatre programmes.
The University and College Union (UCU) described the cuts as ‘a crude attack upon the arts…which is becoming endemic across the sector.’
This attack has already been acutely felt in the state school sector, where the marginalisation of the arts which followed the introduction of Ebacc in 2010 sent the number of students studying Drama – and of Drama teachers in UK schools – spiralling downward. Reductions in Drama applications to university courses are actually the follow-through of many years of anti-Drama propaganda and policy: given the 43 per cent reduction in the number of young people studying Drama to A Level, it is perhaps unsurprising that fewer of them are now seeking careers in the subject.
Longstanding attacks on the status of Drama, and the reduction in government funding for HE arts courses, alongside the background marketisation of higher education, has produced the current dire situation. The DFE's rationale for reducing arts funding is a simple ‘economic needs’ argument, frustratingly familiar to campaigners for arts education, complete with a cynical post-pandemic reference to the NHS: ‘The reprioritisation is designed to target taxpayers’ money towards subjects that support the NHS, science, technology and engineering, and the specific needs of the labour market…’
Such philistinism has sadly become commonplace. Even if we accept this rationale, it ignores the fact that the arts and culture sector contributed a staggering £34.6bn to the UK economy in 2019. Despite rhetoric around ‘recovery’ and ‘levelling up’, it also fails to acknowledge the crucial contribution to public wellbeing that drama and the other arts provide: the cultural glue that brings people together, in contrast to current ‘culture war’ antagonisms.
Endemic attacks on drama and the arts – in any sector – should anger us all. It is time that parents with children who are no longer receiving a broad and balanced curriculum, or those whose off spring are being denied opportunities to study their chosen subject, made their united voices heard.
Become involved with the Drama and Theatre Education Alliance (DTEA) campaign; join a drama association like National Drama; write to your MP. If you are a school teacher, governor, or parent, put drama on the agenda!
