What a superb  letter!  Larry Grossberg

On Thu, 2 Mar 2000, Helen Davis wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> 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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