Where does our government stand? (Part 1)

Considering Mark Reid's insight into the politics of film education, it seemed appropriate to look a little more carefully at the government's stance on the matter.

While there are absolutely invaluable projects running at the moment from the likes of the BFI and Creative Scotland, it occurs to me that, in reality, they are only reaching a very small minority of people, with the real way to access and change the views of film and media education being through schools. 

We then rely on the government facing their fear of the power of media, starting to view media literacy as a fundamental part of education, and pushing resources into nationwide access and teacher training and support if we want to see any substantial progress in this area in the next few decades. 

It would be unfair, however, to tar the whole UK with the same brush. Having spoken with Scott Donaldson, Creative Scotland's Special projects portfolio Manager, regarding his views on the matter, it seems (to me at least) that while Scotland are still fighting similar battles as the rest of the UK with regard to perceptions of film education in general, they are coming up against substantially less resistance from the powers that be in terms of including film and media literacy as a fundamental part of the official curriculum.

In Scotland, the 'Curriculum for excellence', their national curriculum, defines literacy as;

"the set of skills which allows an individual to engage fully in society and in learning, through the different forms of language, and the range of texts, which society values and finds useful."

with examples of texts being:

Examples of texts

novels, short stories, plays, poems reference texts the spoken word charts, maps, graphs and timetables advertisements, promotional leaflets comics, newspapers and magazines CVs, letters and emails films, games and TV programmes labels, signs and posters recipes, manuals and instructions reports and reviews text messages, blogs and social networking sites web pages, catalogues and directories

Furthermore, the Scottish government also circulates a literacy survey to students every other year at the following stages: to test levels of literacy, and questions regarding film text and language form part of those questionnaires. 

p4, p7 S2 (in terms of English schooling, Year 4, Year 7 and Year 9 respectively)

Mick Davies, Education Manager for the CCEA exam board in Northern Ireland also had this to say regarding media literacy in Northern Ireland. 

The inclusion of reference to media education (and moving image products as one among the various stimuli pupils might engage with) as part of the statutory requirements for English with Media Education within the KS3 curriculum reflects the fact that cultural and media products of all types can be read as texts. 

The concept of ‘literacy’ has diversified from the narrow sense of ability to read and write, to reflect the ubiquity of various forms of communication, and the need for young people to be able to understand, interpret and  engage with all sorts of texts. 

In stark comparison, the National Curriculum framework document for England states that the "overarching aim for English in the National Curriculum is to promote high standards of literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the written and spoken word, and to develop their love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment."

Not only is media literacy not mentioned at all in that definition, but the only instance in which media is brought up is to say; 

"The arts (comprising art and design, music, dance, drama and media arts)... are not compulsory National Curriculum subjects after the age of 14 but all pupils have a statutory entitlement to be able to study a subject in each of those... areas."

So, students - at least in England - are far from being encouraged to pursue arts subjects at the points in their schooling where they're beginning to make decisions about their careers and futures, therefore perpetuating the notions that that media, or the arts in general, are not valuable areas of study or potential career paths. 

The second part of this study will consider why this might be, and take a look at the directions media education, and the UK film industry might be headed after the General Elections.

Footnotes

1) All details regarding National Curriculums are available via respective websites