Inquiry: Design Education
Crafts Council Response June 2011
The Crafts Council has submitted evidence to the Design Commission’s Inquiry into Design Education. Read the terms of reference and our responses to relevant questions in Sections 2 and 3 below.
Call for Evidence
Hypothesis
To improve public services and support economic growth in the UK, design education should have a role within the whole education system; both in relation to the STEM subjects, and embedded in a range of other disciplines and credentials.
Terms of reference
This inquiry is an opportunity to investigate the economic and social rationale for design education, both specialised and embedded in other disciplines. This is a fairly simple and logical argument but not one that has not been fully articulated yet, or with which many people outside of the design ‘world’ will be familiar.
This will be done by examining:
1) Whether design could be said to be strategically important to the UK – to the economy, to business, to society and the individual;
2) Whether design education, and in what forms, could therefore be said to be strategically important to the UK – to the economy, to business, to society and the individual;
3) Whether design education is in any way ‘vulnerable’, both in the narrow sense meant by HEFCE, at other points in the ‘design education pipeline’, and in comparison with international competitors.
The inquiry will therefore consider design in the whole education system, with a particular focus on areas where potential vulnerability has been identified.
Contributing
The steering group is interested to hear from organisations that use design or employ design graduates, or design educators. The deadline for the call for evidence is 19th July 2011.
Crafts Council Response
Introduction:
The Crafts Council welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence on design education to the Design Commission and firmly supports the hypothesis.
The Crafts Council does not directly employ craft graduates for their craft skills and is not a teaching institution. However, as the national development agency we have in-depth knowledge of the economic and social contribution of the contemporary craft sector, as well as the skillset and training requirements of craft graduates and professionals, in both employment and education contexts.
Our comments are specific to craft and cover value, skills and employment in the contemporary craft sector through responses to relevant questions in Sections 2 and 3. We draw on evidence from our programmes and extensive Crafts Council research undertaken in 2010 to investigate craft graduate career paths and portfolio-working in the contemporary craft sector, which entails combining for example teaching and making.
Section 2: Design in education
Answer this section if you work for an institution that teaches design.
10) What school subjects/ previous qualifications are particularly useful for students studying design courses at HE level?
Craft teaching in schools plays a vital role in developing a pipeline to HE and ultimately to unlocking the economic and social potential of the sector.
Underlining the importance of craft in schools is a major strand of Crafts Council activity and we have long advocated the reintroduction of craft as an independent statutory subject on the National Curriculum to Key Stage 3. At present, craft teaching falls under Art and Design and/or Design and Technology, and whilst the Crafts Council supports the teaching of these subjects in schools, our interest is in ensuring that craft is properly recognised and taught – as the best means to harness its distinctive learning benefits and generate demand for further study at both HE and FE.
Craft teaching in schools encourages creative thinking and innovative learning and furnishes pupils with practical, technical and artistic skills for further craft study at HE, as well as giving them the opportunity to discover that studying contemporary craft can lead to a viable, entrepreneurial career. Craft practice also fosters a range of transferrable skills, with significant cross-curricular benefits and well-being potential (see question 24a below).
Promoting the value of craft to the learner in schools also contributes towards the development of the next generation of consumers and audiences for craft.
Without sufficient levels of quality craft education there is reduced impetus at FE/HE for further study in this area.
11) What skills do you see as being particular to a design training/ education?
Craft is not only a practical subject; rather it is a hybrid of practical and intellectual skills, best summed up as ‘intelligent making’. As above, craft learning in schools engenders practical skills, understanding of materials and processes, as well as a range of other transferable skills, and research shows that developing haptic skills aids cognitive development. See Benefits to the Learner of 21st Century Craft, Nicholas Houghton London: Crafts Council (2005) and Practically Minded: The Benefits and Mechanisms Associated with a Craft Curriculum, Dr. Aric Sigman, and Ruskin Mill Educational Trust (2008).
Beyond school age, craft graduates develop a range of advanced technical, artistic and business skills. They are highly qualified makers, practitioners, researchers and innovators, grounded in an educational experience which involves learning by doing, with project-based enquiry in critical contexts as the dominant pedagogic model on undergraduate courses. Innovation, high quality, authenticity and aesthetic value are important characteristics of contemporary crafts output and the combination is, perhaps, particular to craft.
Crafts practice combines personal enquiry with craft knowledge, processes and skills – often tacit in nature – and these are core business assets. This intelligent making, provides students and graduates with vital transferable and cognitive skills, equipping them for multi-track careers and portfolio-working in the ever changing landscape of micro-businesses and freelance work that characterises the craft sector, and equally provides a strong basis for broader careers in design.
12) What skills do you believe employers to value in design graduates?
Crafts graduates are particularly valued for their making and technical skills which sets them apart from graduates of other creative courses in art, design and media.
In 2010, as part of the wider Creative Graduates, Creative Futures survey, the Crafts Council published Crafting Futures, an in depth research report examining the early careers of crafts graduates from UK higher education. Research found that craft graduates are flexible and entrepreneurial, typically working independently or in micro-businesses. In the early years of their careers more than one in three craft makers had worked freelance and one in five had run a business, with double this proportion aiming to run a business as their careers progressed. In addition, craft graduates are adaptable in an economic downturn, proactively exploring new markets, maintaining demand for services and strategically cutting costs.
Craft graduates were also found to be exceptionally socially mobile with a high percentage stating that they were the first family member to enter HEI and with no difference in their success after graduation compared to those from more privileged backgrounds. Networking, collaboration and portfolio-work were identified as particularly important aspects of their careers.
In 2010 the Crafts Council also published a major research report Making Value, which found that entrepreneurial portfolio-working is prevalent in the contemporary craft sector, with 50–70% of makers working to create careers in this way.
Craft practice also has significant spill-over effects; the problem-solving skills, practical skills and materials knowledge developed through craft practice feed into a range of professions such as engineering, software design and medicine. Our research found makers work in a far greater range of places, and with more different types of people, than previously realised or recorded. From fashion to film, hospitals to heritage, manufacturing to mental health projects and from retailing to residential courses, the research showed that makers are entrepreneurial and highly motivated in applying their practice across industry sectors and community and education settings.
13) How does your institution provide for enterprise or entrepreneurial education, or provide the mechanisms for self-employment at course level?
The Crafts Council is not an education institution and does not provide teaching at course level. However, we run a number of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programmes, addressing both craft practice and business development and have undertaken extensive research into CPD in the sector.
The Crafts Council Crafting Futures survey found that craft makers are life-long learners, willing to invest in their own personal development throughout their careers. At the time of the survey 38 per cent of participants were engaged in further study or some form CPD, often combined with paid work. And almost three-quarters of crafts graduates had undertaken some form of informal or formal study since graduating.
Skills training in the craft sector, in many cases, does not follow a straight forward trajectory from school age learning through to Higher Education. Rather, makers commonly build skills throughout their careers, undertaking courses that might be at a lower level than qualifications already achieved, in response to a specific skills need. CPD is an important means for makers to keep up-to-date with digital technologies and industry software; learn new practice skills, business knowledge and promote their work. It also provides opportunities to network and collaborate with like-minded individuals, with short courses as the preferred model for CPD.
Many makers come to craft as a second career through FE and other routes. Training that helps craft makers at all stages of their careers understand the market and recognise the diverse contexts/collaborations in which their skills can be applied is particularly valuable and can assist makers in developing different income streams and sustaining their practices.
Apprenticeships could be an important model for formal work experience in the craft sector. However apprenticeships typically work well in sectors with a preponderance of large-employers and less well in sectors comprising smaller organisations. The current emphasis on young people also works against people seeking to enter craft as a second career. The current apprenticeship model needs to be more flexible to take into account the structures of different sectors, including the craft sector and the Crafts Council continues to advocate for this and to work with Creative & Cultural Skills on models for the future.
The Crafts Council has a strong track record in CPD and we work with hundreds of professional makers every year. Our Professional Development Programme, Collective, which is a portfolio of five continuing professional development programmes, helps craft makers to develop their work and business skills throughout their careers. Collective is a national programme, working in partnership with a number of regional providers and complementing the regional programmes existing in some parts of the country.
The Crafts Council advocates further integration of business and entrepreneurial skills to match artistic skills in creative and cultural courses at all levels. Our research shows that whilst crafts graduates develop many of the skills required for their careers on undergraduate courses, rating most highly creativity and innovation, visual skills and presenting their work and ideas, like most creative graduates they felt they had less well-developed IT, networking and client-facing skills. As craft practitioners tend to run their own businesses, there is less evidence from employers than in other sectors, but there is every reason to believe graduates own perceptions of their need.
At school level, the Crafts Council runs a number of schemes to encourage craft learning. Our Craft Club scheme trains volunteers to pass on their skills in after school clubs. Craft Club is affiliated to the Arts Award scheme which encourages enterprise as part of the higher standards for secondary age pupils.
14) How does your institution ensure the curriculum is relevant to a range of stakeholders?
The Crafts Council believes that as part of a balanced education, pupils should have access to rigorous teaching in a broad range of subjects to age 16, and that a variety of skills should be recognised and valued in the schools system.
We believe that numeracy and literacy skills should be taught in schools to Key Stage 4. We believe that, by comparison, practical skills, including craft knowledge and skills, should form an integral part of the National Curriculum to Key Stage 3.
We advocate the recognition of craft as an independent subject in the curriculum with distinctive learning benefits.
15) Does your institution track the destination of leavers from design courses?
Crafts Council Crafting Futures research tracked the destinations of more that 600 craft graduates, six years on from graduation. As above, our research showed a preponderance of freelance and independent working in the sector and that craft graduates are flexible and entrepreneurial with high levels of technical skills. Specific findings included:
- Three out of five crafts graduates had worked in the creative industries and in their field of expertise since graduating. At the time of the survey 9 out of 10 crafts graduates were in paid work, the majority in creative jobs and in, or close to achieving, their career goals.
- Portfolio careers are well established, with 50 per cent of crafts graduates in multiple jobs at the time of the survey, typically combining employment with self-employment, study or developing their creative practice.
- The remaining 50 per cent were in one main job or work activity at the time of the survey. The majority (72 per cent) of these graduates were in a permanent salaried job and the predominant mode of working was full-time (85 per cent).
- Unemployment was low at three per cent and seven per cent were working unpaid at the time of the survey. Unpaid work was a common strategy for job-seeking or learning new skills, particularly in the very early stages of a career, with 39 per cent undertaking some voluntary experience since graduating.
- 37 per cent of crafts graduates had worked freelance since graduating and at the time of the survey 15 per cent were still doing so. 26 per cent had started a business during their early careers and 19 per cent currently had their own business. – Teaching represents a significant career choice for crafts graduates: 41 per cent of crafts graduates had experience of teaching in their early careers and 25 per cent were teaching at the time of the survey.
However, research also indicated that finding work after graduation is one of the main challenges facing craft graduates, with only half feeling prepared for the world of work on leaving their courses. In common with other creative industries, the work experience market in the craft sector is very competitive and opportunities are found informally with work experience contacts established at university and by word of mouth as essential career facilitators.
20) What do you perceive to be the current strengths of the UK design education system?
Craft in Schools
In schools, craft education is most effective when it fosters practical skills and engagement with materials and is used in the context of cross curricular learning. Students need sufficient time and freedom to explore materials, with skilled teachers.
There are a number of successful examples of craft teaching in schools. Direct Crafts Council interventions include Firing-Up, which is a replicable, scalable national programme that aims to reinvigorate ceramics teaching across the country by working with HEIs, their technicians, tutors and pupils, and which is supported by the Esmée Fairbairn and Paul Hamlyn Foundations. And Creative Catalyst, which is a recent pilot in partnership with Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE) to give makers with an established contemporary craft practice the skills to share their creativity, practical skills and material knowledge effectively with teachers and pupils. The programme has evidenced makers effecting meaningful differences for children and young people, with impacts on their creative learning, confidence, craft and communication skills.
The benefits of maker engagement in schools are also recognised in the Ofsted report Drawing Together- art, craft and design in schools [Ofsted 2005/8], in which a key recommendation was to ‘promote opportunities for every child and teacher of the subject to have the opportunity to work in an art gallery, or with an artist, craft worker or designer as part of their cultural entitlement’.
However, the provision of craft education in schools is patchy, and fragmented. The Crafts Council advocates recognition of craft as an independent, statutory subject in the National Curriculum as the best methodology to maximise potential impact.
Craft in HEIs
In HE craft education is most effective when it equips graduates with the requisite advanced intellectual and practical skills for professional craft practice. The teaching of entrepreneurial skills alongside creative skills is also hugely beneficial.
In 2010, the Crafts Council undertook research on craft in HE. As discussed in question 21 below, research indicated that there have been a number of significant craft course closures in recent years, with recent policy changes posing further threats to craft in HE.
While research also found that 200 courses were listed for 2010/11 that were not offered in 2009/10, this apparent growth in provision needs to be treated with caution, as in some cases it can be explained by new variations on existing joint honours courses.
Amongst the new courses, a significant number of interdisciplinary BAs offered pathways that combined craft disciplines with a wide variety of other creative subjects. At other HEls, craft courses had been combined or replaced with more industry-focused courses.
The trend for interdisciplinary courses is apparent across all subject areas and craft is no exception. Such courses can be seen as improving employability and industry connections, creating the opportunity for students to draw together different interests and technologies, work with specialists from other fields and increase the potential of a creatively fulfilling and sustainable portfolio career. (Source: Making Value)
We are encouraged that there is a healthy growth in interdisciplinary courses including a craft element and believe that it is imperative that craft is included in this broader landscape, widening the routes into the sector and providing makers with the competencies required in the modern workplace.
However, craft at the highest level requires deeply specialist knowledge of materials and process and it is vital that the HE sector retains a critical mass of specialist teaching capacity and access to materials and equipment to deliver the levels of knowledge and skill that lead to success as a maker, in addition to the theoretical knowledge often provided in interdisciplinary courses. Only a combination will allow craft to fulfill its potential contribution to the country’s economic and social outputs.
21) What do you perceive to be the threats or risks (if any) to the successful delivery of UK design education in the future?
Craft in Schools
The Crafts Council is concerned that recent initiatives in school age education including the framework of the National Curriculum Review, the introduction of the E-Bac, recommendations in the Wolf Review and declining numbers of arts teacher training places in 2011/12, signal a renewed emphasis on a core of academic subjects and threaten the provision of practical and cultural education in schools.
Whilst we support the Government’s ambition to give greater freedom to schools and teachers and recognise that schools will still be able to teach subjects which are not statutory alongside the National Curriculum, the current situation threatens the provision of cultural education in schools and its important benefits; sending a message to pupils, parents, schools and employers that implies a lower value relative to other subjects.
Craft teaching in schools is vital for the development of the requisite skills for craft study in HE/FE and for professional craft practice. It also develops awareness in young people of craft as a viable career and future audiences and buyers of craft.
Craft in HEIs
Recent policy changes in HE which have resulted in public investment in ‘priority subjects’ also pose threats to craft in HE. Medicine, engineering and science have been singled out as specific examples of the type of course that government funds should support. These changes send a powerful message to students and universities about the relative value of arts and humanities subjects and fail to recognise the important cross-fertilization between STEM and cultural subjects and the significant economic contribution made by these sectors. We argue that public funding has a vital role to play in providing support at HE level for all subjects that have economic and social impacts, including craft
In 2010 the Crafts Council undertook research comparing undergraduate craft courses listed on the UCAS database for 2009-10 and 2010-11. While there was evidence of an increase in the number of craft courses overall (see above), analysis showed that over 30 craft courses closed between 2009/10 and 2010/11. These were over-whelmingly discipline-specific, and it is these in-depth craft courses – with their need for space and equipment and limited capacity that have become even more vulnerable following recent HE funding decisions. Graduates of interdisciplinary courses that do not encompass opportunities for practical engagement with materials and processes will not be equipped to use their learning to move into production and make an economic contribution without further training.
The lack of ability to accept high numbers of students and the lack of understanding of craft as a career amongst school-levers combined with the cost of equipment and space means many craft courses are at high risk of closure. Although craft is still taught at HE level it is often as part of a wider subject and therefore the deep skills required to excel in craft are not covered sufficiently.
While the Crafts Council continues to argue for more diversity of routes into the professional craft sector, and we can appreciate the economic attractiveness of concentrating expensive resources in fewer institutions (reserving judgment on whether this is the best service to the student or the professional craft sector), we are very concerned about the potential consequences of policy changes. We will not retrieve knowledge lost in the coming years – it will vanish forever.
Reflecting this, in May 2011, the Crafts Council submitted a response to the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s (HEFCE) review of Strategically Important and Vulnerable Subjects (SIVS), outlining our position that craft should be treated as a SIVS; both because of the significant socio-economic contribution of the sector and as a result of the recent changes.
22) What is needed to overcome any of these perceived threats or risks?
Craft in Schools
To harness the important learning and socio-economic benefits of craft practice, there must be adequate provision for craft teaching throughout the education system.
The Crafts Council welcomes increasing recognition from business ministers of the vital social and economic contribution of practical skills, including craft. At school level, policy makers have a vital role to play in translating dialogue into policy by addressing hierarchical distinctions between a core of academic subjects and cultural subjects, acknowledging the important cross-curricular benefits of cultural subjects, including craft, and restoring the opportunity for skills and practical learning in schools and to the National Curriculum, encouraging the development of craft knowledge in young people and the recognition that craft is a viable, entrepreneurial career.
The Crafts Council advocates the reintroduction of craft to the curriculum as an independent, statutory subject to Key Stage 3 – as the best means to maximize potential impact.
Craft in HE
In HEIs, public sector funding for craft teaching and research plays a particularly significant role in the sector, with the majority of craft makers currently being graduates of honours degree courses, and with HEIs undertaking cutting-edge research which leads the sector in terms of innovation. This teaching and research enables the development of materials knowledge and craft practice to continue and serves to unlock the economic and social potential of the sector.
Professional Craft Practice
As above, craft makers are lifelong learners and continue to develop professional and technical skills throughout their careers. Crafts Council Making Value research shows that for the majority of makers, investment in their own development has been matched by interventions from arts/ creative industries support agencies, HEIs and generic business support services, which enable business start-up and/ or catalyse growth.
Our view is that specific, timely and appropriate forms of Continuing Professional Development (CPD), are crucial to business and creative growth within micro-enterprises without large available assets or working capital. Such businesses are prevalent, not only within contemporary craft but also across the arts and heritage sectors. In practice, some form of subsidy is required to enable micro-businesses to access this provision.
Without public investment, potential businesses and social enterprises are – in many cases – unlikely to reach start-up, and, where they do, are unlikely to achieve the scales of production, quality of innovation, reach of market or impact on communities or economies of which we know they are capable.
Section 3: General
23) In what way does the current education system, particularly as it relates to design skills, produce the kind of individuals suited to the Britain of the 21st century?
Craft can play a vital role in education, extending far beyond the most obvious benefits. It fosters creative thinking and innovative learning and research shows that developing haptic skills aids cognitive development. See Benefits to the Learner of 21st Century Craft, Nicholas Houghton (2005) London: Crafts Council and Practically Minded: The Benefits and Mechanisms Associated with a Craft Curriculum, Dr. Aric Sigman and Ruskin Mill Educational Trust (2008).
Craft skills also provide children with a firmer grasp of the 3-D world and allow young people to experience how the world works in practice, to gain an understanding of materials and processes and to make informed judgments about abstract concepts. This in turn can develop problem-solving skills which feed into many professions including, for example, engineering, medicine and software design. Learning through craft encourages risk taking and decision making which are important transferrable skills; pupils discover that ‘things don’t always go right’, but learning can still be useful. This increases pupils’ sense of autonomy and control, which can have positive impacts on their personal and broader academic development.
Engagement with materials and the development of associated skills can also engender important cross-curricular learning benefits that feed into a number of other disciplines, including STEM subjects. In the case of science for example, observing the effect of firing processes and glazes on clay can assist understandings of chemical changes in other situations. These cross-curricular learning opportunities are one of the key principles and benefits of the Crafts Council’s programme Firing-Up which is outlined above.
Craft teaching at HE requires the development of advanced practical and technical skills; and as the Crafting Futures research shows craft graduates are entrepreneurial, flexible and resilient, and are particularly valued for their making and technical skills.
Craft professionals work in the wider creative and cultural industry sectors, and beyond. They have developed their craft knowledge and craft thinking into uniquely valuable consultancy services. They apply the expressive value which defines craft within the creative economy, contributing specialist knowledge to the performing arts, film, television and digital media. They contribute to economic growth in sectors such as manufacturing, driving innovation in products and processes through their materials knowledge. Their particular understanding of how people relate to material qualities and objects, in both a functional and emotional sense, informs distinctive contributions in fields as diverse as healthcare and cultural tourism.
24) Please include details of any case studies or examples which clearly illustrate
a. the value of design and/ or design education to the wider economy and society, or
Value of Craft:
The craft sector and craft practice makes important economic contributions and have significant social value. The specific value of craft can be understood in terms of its potential in educational settings, as above, and contribution to social inclusion. The craft sector is also part of a vibrant creative industries sector and makes a small yet significant, direct contribution to the UK economy. Below we identify case studies and research indicating the economic and social value of craft.
Economic:
Craft teaching throughout the education system is vital to professional craft practice, with the majority of makers entering the sector through specialist HE courses. As above, FE is also an important entry route.
The craft sector is part of a vibrant creative industries sector which contributed 5.6 per cent of the UK’s Gross Value Added in 2008 (source: DCMS). Craft businesses make a direct contribution to the UK economy; the whole craft sector generates in excess of £3bn each year and until recently was growing more rapidly by employment than any other creative sector. Largely made up of self-employed makers and owners of SMEs, the contemporary craft sector employs nearly 35,000 people and produces turnover in excess of £1bn each year – although actual direct economic impact is likely to be significantly larger than indicated above, as available statistics exclude crucial elements of the craft sector production cycle (e.g. trade, retail, education).
Craft also makes economic contributions in specific contexts. A new Crafts Council briefing note, Craft and Rural Development considers the current and potential role of craft in rural economies, examining the assertion that craft is one of the key drivers of the future creative rural economy and key to the £500m contributed each year by creative professionals to the rural economy of England. Research focuses on the contribution of craft industries to local retail and experience economies – serving as a tourist attraction creating retail and participatory experiences for visitors. Beyond tourism, research highlights the contribution of craft in rural contexts to innovation, supporting local supply chains, skills development and the use of waste materials.
Crafts Council research also shows that craft makers are increasingly adopting post-industrial manufacturing technologies to grow their businesses and reshape the systems enabling craft production and consumption. Our recent briefing note Craft and the Digital World evidences makers deploying digital tools ranging from rapid prototyping and Quick Response (QR) codes to Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) and augmented reality.
Social:
Beyond the classroom, craft practice can facilitate the inclusion of hard-to-reach learners, offering people the opportunity to work with materials, make objects with meaning and permanence, while engaging in conversations that build individual worth and community value. In terms of craft and the social contribution of makers, the practice and the people can give material voice to those who are ‘hard to hear’. Through making, participants attain a sense of achievement and ownership; experience the enjoyment of the immediacy and concreteness of materials; and build confidence, self-esteem and a sense of value.
For example, in the British Ceramics Biennial the Graffiti*d project, profiled in recent Crafts Council research, saw a group of 13-16 year old boys working with ceramicist Cj O’Neill to develop public graffiti pieces. The boys, who were excluded from school, used the graffiti to transform ceramic plates into installations which commented on the closure of the Ainsley Pottery in Stoke-on-Trent. In the process, they gained a voice on local issues within their community, whilst developing pride in their work and enthusiasm for work opportunities in the creative industries.
The Graffiti*d project is just one example of craft’s well-being potential which is examined in Craft and Wellbeing, a recent briefing note from the Crafts Council. The briefing argues that developing craft skills can build the confidence that strengthens social interaction and ultimately well-being and cites research which suggests that social connectedness is perhaps the single most important factor in distinguishing happy people from those who are merely ‘getting by.’
Finally, the enormous popularity of craft is evidenced in the Taking Part research, which showed that 18 per cent of the UK adult population took part in a craft activity in 2009/10. (Taking Part: England’s Survey of Culture, Leisure and Sport, an ongoing survey originally commissioned by DCMS/ACE/SE/MLA in 2005).
