We haven't taught you anything you didn't already know

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The only legitimate opinions about art education anywhere - not simply the UK - must come from the mouths of students, not from the stock of ornamented fantasies of 'teaching and learning' invented by educational handlers who have long ago given up on being anything but clerks dedicated to sucking the life out of any evidence of optimism, creativity and fun that might emerge, against all odds, in the dank recesses of those illdesigned and ill-lit architectural monstrosities that pass for studios, workshops and common rooms.

We all know what the students say: we want better and we want more. And they should have better and more - and fast. But society doesn't work like that. All the stakeholders must have a go at negotiating the future of the landscape in order to decide what kind of educational opportunity will be on offer. So the travesty of student satisfaction surveys and league tables showing excellence in 'teaching and learning' will continue to convince some that the voices of students have been heard. In the end, what will art education look like? Will it be an experience based on the model of the liberal arts, or a curriculum tied to the needs of business?

What do the experts in 'teaching and learning', the deans, have to say? The Group for Learning in Art and Design (GLAD) - 50 academics managing and teaching art and design in higher education - have already stamped our existing programmes 'not fit for purpose'. [1] According to GLAD, art and design education must reflect 'the multi-disciplinary nature of the creative industries'. Professor Linda Drew, dean of academic development at the University of the Arts London, is the editor of this study. I have not read the study in full, but my gut feeling is that GLAD is trying to put a brave face on the hard facts of art and design recruitment. Every lecturer knows that recruitment in fine art is falling; what surprised me was the fact that undergraduate design enrolment fell for the first time in seven years. During the early 80s, fine art departments in universities experienced a similar decline in enrolment, yet graphic design and advertising design courses saved the day, paying the bills that would enable smaller fine art cohorts to continue to exist. Will this scenario be repeated? We need to see the figures! Actually, the fall in absolute numbers entering art and design is not a surprise to all lecturers teaching outside London. Vice-chancellors are well aware of the looming demographic disaster and anticipate a big fall in student numbers by 2012. There simply will not be enough university-age students in the pool in the UK.

Pretty soon, all that will be left in the provinces is post-1992 universities with a business school and a school of art, media and design. (Or maybe just a school of creative industries?)

So, when Drew tells us something we already know - 'the creative industries have changed dramatically and so must we' - we should consider the other facts we know as well. It is simply not the case that 'art education is at risk of becoming conservative'; rather, art education is in danger of becoming extinct in the context of liberal education. Why? Because these are the features of the current crisis: unfavourable demographics for higher education in general and the prospect of negative economic growth.

Higher education in the UK twitches whenever the charge of 'elitism' or social irrelevance is raised. It's a good stick, and the state wields it well. And why not, you should ask. Apart from one or two private institutions, it is the state that provides the core funding for higher education and academic research. This means that educational policy at all levels is constantly reminded of its social responsibility, constantly placed in proximity to an agenda not of its own making. The argument for liberal art and humanities used to be the defence against the total instrumentalisation of higher education. Muckrakers of the early 20th Century, like the American novelist Upton Sinclair, exposed and criticised the connection between 'big business' and academia. Today, the first thought of the academic is sponsorship. I say, let the creative industries pay a fair share of the bill for educating highly skilled, well-trained graduates in art and design. Have they ever?

More worrying is the state of the economy; the question of art education cannot be addressed in isolation from that. The economy and educational policy both run in cycles, but it is education that stands to lose more and more of its autonomy as arguments that tie it more firmly to the economy become increasingly persuasive. Since I have been engaged in higher education, there have been four recessionary cycles, including the current downturn. Hard economic times always force people entering higher education to make difficult choices. Today's recessionary climate will encourage middle-class tuition-paying students to do likewise - that is, to choose the most costeffective degree outcome. That working-class students will face a much starker choice should be clear. New Labour's target of 50% of university-aged students in higher education, proposed long before recession was in the air, has not been met. Ironically, that figure is beginning to look like an impressive strategy to absorb the surplus labour that will inevitably be created by the current recession. The problem is, there is no Keynesian mechanism yet in place to ensure the working class a proportionally greater stake in higher education. The wealth of the past decade has not trickled down to the higher education sector as far as art is concerned, but you can bet the pain will certainly be felt there quickly and sharply.

If the most realistic expectation for prospective art and design students today is to become part of the so-called creative industries, then I would like to see the evidence that shows that in three to four years' time there will be a significant enough demand for those graduates to justify the scope of change envisioned by GLAD. We all know that the distilling industry is recession-proof; it remains to be seen if the creative industries are too. Why don't the deans just admit that they are scared of art and design going down the tubes and that this is their best effort to save it?

The institutions of contemporary art are certainly a part of the creative industries, at least from the point of view of the accountant's balance sheet. Yet bear in mind that the total turnover for art worldwide is no larger than the GNP of Iceland. And haven't you read that book about why artists are poor? Wake up! Don't confuse the ideological power of art to engage the fancy of those in a position to mobilise vast resources with the actual power of art to generate wealth. The art market is holding its breath right now, waiting to see if fine art is indeed as recession-proof as Coors Lite. It remains to be seen if fine art, in the short term, will outperform the stock market, property, precious metals, oil and commodities. If it doesn't, capital will flee. And even if blue chip art maintains its spectacular price levels, not all art will benefit in turn. Contemporary art is especially vulnerable to changes in demand because at the low end of the price scale it is driven by entry level buyers; you know, the people who make money in the stock market, who work for banks, hedge funds, investment houses, or own small businesses. If the coming economic downturn leads to a culling of galleries specialising in new art, and if the loss of tax revenues leads to a decrease in public funding for the arts, and if a contraction in art in higher education leads to less money for 'practice-led' research or 'critical practices' in art, then who or what will support contemporary art?

In New York, during the recession of the late1980s/early-1990s, the word on the street was 'stay alive till 1995'. Will the economic bump of the 2012 Olympics be large enough to save contemporary art, or art education? Will anyone outside London benefit? Can we afford to wait and see? Is the rhetorical question the last refuge of the powerless and defeated?

[1.] Dan Bloom, 'Art and design degrees "need overhaul": art and design students should be taught business skills and a variety of related subjects, say academic panel.' The Guardian, August 26, 2008.

Michael Corris is professor of fine art at Sheffield Hallam University and University of Wales, Newport.

This extract was reproduced in Art Monthly's special issue on art education, October 2008/ Issue 320, p5-6.

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