When Bristol Old Vic Theatre School announced it was stopping undergraduate courses because they weren’t financially viable, people suddenly decided to pop their heads out of the sand for a brief moment of shock, horror, outrage, and/or concern. Yet this blog is article after article screaming into a void about how this was the inevitable conclusion of chasing the golden goose of government funding via the degree programme.

I’ve seen many people voicing their concerns, wanting to meet up with like-minded “worried people” about the possible answer, but all desperately missing the point. There is no answer within the degree route. It has never been fit for purpose. I understand programme leaders concerned for their livelihoods trying to find a workaround, I’ve even heard some talk about radical reform. . but always within the degree programme. The radical change that’s needed is to finally admit that the degree is not worth the paper that it’s written on – it’s just the training that truly matters.

My MSc dissertation title was, “Increased Student Intake and Individualised Training in UK Vocational Dance and Drama Colleges: Industry Perspectives”. I interviewed faculty, directors, choreographers, and casting directors and the result was depressingly unanimous – courses and institutions were not fit for purpose. Students had stopped being mentored, they were now the ‘clients’ getting the most out of a product that was not fit for purpose. In a bid to stay afloat, talent was no longer the prerequisite for courses that were being sold to provide career progression i.e. for every talented student there were the “kerching” students who people knew would never actually make a career as a professional performer, but the college needed their income to make the books balance.

Whilst this sounds horrendously harsh, recruiters could console themselves with the “but who are we to dash their dreams” script. Yet those same recruiters never asked the “but who are we to steal their money and give false hope” question. The result was that staff were feeling frustrated, the end product was not always fit for purpose, and an already oversubscribed industry was being swamped with hopeful wannabes who simply never had it in the first place.

Now I’m a firm believer that the arts is an amazingly enriching learning experience, with transferable skills that can secure you a successful career in lots of disciplines, but many of these courses are not even exploiting that. They are leading their students on by pretending that they’re going to make a living as performers in professional theatre.

Therefore when I see programme leaders scratching their heads and working out what the solution is, maybe the more authentic first question should be ‘What have we done, and how can we put it right’? We have created an academic industry out of a career that has always been vocational. As you’re asking students to write their essays or dissertations have you ever taken a step back and asked if that makes them a more robust performer? Who’s more likely to get the job – the person who learns the foundations of a pirouette, and who practices it with a teacher day in and day out, until they move on to the double, then the triple, or the person who writes a dissertation on the merits of pirouettes in musical theatre?

Students are now being trained to get through a degree, to pass the relevant modules and to grab the gown at the end, whereas they used to be trained to get a job. It’s no good academics sitting and working out how to solve this issue, as (and I’ll be blunt here), you’re working out how to polish a turd. Go into one of the many Facebook groups where young graduates flock to ask for advice from others that your courses should have taught them.

My hunch is that universities that added the cash cow of performing arts courses a few years back, will soon start to stop them. Controversially I think that government funding streams should be linked to job prospects – let’s get more money to the courses and colleges that are truly delivering for their students. I guess it’s up to every college Principal to work out which category they belong to.