>From Prof Peter Golding to

Mr C. Woodhead
H.M. Chief Inspector of Schools
Office for Standards in Education
Alexandra House
33 Kingsway
London WC2B 6SE

2nd March, 2000.

Dear Mr. Woodhead,

I was disappointed to hear an item on this morning's Radio 4
'Today'
programme suggesting you had expressed opposition to the growth of
media
studies courses in further, higher, and continuing education.  I
believe
this was in the context of a discussion about 'Lifelong Learning'.
While I
cannot comment with any authority on that broader topic, and while
I
appreciate that Higher Education is outside your remit, I do wish
to
express great concern that a senior educational professional with a
high
public profile could be misleading the public and prospective
students on
this important issue.  On behalf of the subject association which
represents, among other activities, media studies in higher
education, I
must respond to this potentially damaging and certainly inaccurate
intervention.

Despite occasional lampooning and often uninformed comment in the
press,
media and cultural studies are great success stories for British
Higher
Education.  Like other subject areas their teaching is rigorously
assessed
by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, through a
detailed
regime of inspection and documentation.  Media Studies underwent
just such
a scrutiny in 1998/99, and came through with flying colours, in a
report
which specifically applauds a "relationship between theory and
practice
[which] is regularly and vigorously debated".

Students entering such courses (which, precisely because of their
popularity, are able to require good entrance qualifications) do
not
anticipate employment solely in the media industries, any more than
English
literature courses expect to turn out troops of novelists.  In an
increasingly flexible and dynamic labour market an important aim of
university teaching must be to produce graduates with broad bodies
of
knowledge and a range of generic skills.  In this media studies is
exceptionally effective, although some programmes do indeed focus
on
technical and professional skills.  Cultural and media studies
students do,
in fact, as national research shows, enjoy an employment record
above
average for the arts and social sciences. This point is again
underlined by
the QAA report.  Coming in the wake of the recent report from the
government's Creative Industries Task Force, predicting a growth in
employment in this sector of 50,000 in the next 3 years, it would
be
extraordinarily remiss of universities not to be offering such
programmes.
That they are doing so with such success is a matter for
celebration and
support.

British media and cultural studies are internationally regarded
with
admiration, and in the last Research Assessment Exercise undertaken
by the
Higher Education Funding Council, demonstrated research of the
highest
calibre across a wide variety of institutions. Leading academic
publishers
regard these fields as outstanding sources of export earnings
because of
this international reputation. In a fast growing and highly
respected area
of study across the world, the standing of UK scholarship is
pre-eminent.
Within schools media studies has invigorated disciplines such as
English,
though it is a myth to imagine it has become a large and rapidly
expanding
subject area.  In the last five years media studies represents just
1.2
percent of A level entries across all boards, in our judgement a
worryingly
low figure.

Lord David Puttnam has recently argued that, in his words, "I
absolutely
and increasingly believe in the crucial importance of media
studies; they
should be at the very heart of any education system, which claims
to equip
its citizens to deal with the complexities of life in the
twenty-first
century".  I very much hope this is a view shared by you and by
OFSTED.

I would be very happy to meet you to enlarge on any of these
points, but
would in any case be very pleased to reassure our members that, in
the
Chief Inspector of Schools, they had a senior official well
informed about
and supportive of the important work they do.

Yours sincerely





Professor Peter Golding


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Prof. Peter Golding
Head of Department
Dept. of Social Sciences
Loughborough University
LE11 3TU

Tel: (0) 1509 223390
Fax: (0) 1509 223944
E-Mail:  [log in to unmask]
Website:
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ss/depstaff/staff/golding.htm

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