During the course of 2015, this blog published a number of
widely read pieces about the current state of things at the Australian Film,
Television & Radio School. You can find the key piece here. Other pieces can be located via the links at the side of this blog. The thinking behind them was to question
AFTRS about the philosophy (hope that’s not being too grand) behind its current
teaching and admissions policies. Lurking behind that matter was a judgement
that AFTRS had abandoned its former goal of providing an elite education with a
view to enhancing major film-making talent and had instead embarked upon a
practice whereby it concentrated on greater student throughput . This was
epitomised by its offering of dozens of short courses which earn students paper
qualifications across a myriad of specialist activities.
By one view, this educational practice was similar to that now provided by state-based TAFE institutions across a range of trades. (Except of
course those trades provide qualifications that allow for virtually instant entry into the
workplace due to significant and continuing labour market shortages.) Such a practice brought into consideration
whether a national Federally funded tertiary institution school should in
effect reduce itself to a place whereby young students mostly from Sydney and
its environs have access to a massively well-resourced body providing only
rudimentary learning. In such circumstances whether AFTRS should exist at all as
that Federally funded elite educational
institution is also brought into serious question.
Further concerns about AFTRS activities in 2015 arose
because of the way it handled the transition from its retiring CEO to a new
appointee. Without re-iterating all of the problems that were caused by the
delay in this appointment, which the AFTRS Council claims was almost entirely
the fault of dysfunction in former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s personal
office, the fact is that in late 2014, a senior staff member, appointed from
overseas, arrived to set new directions for the elite students yet was banished
within a bare six months. A former staff member, working at a film school at
Ealing Studios, but without CEO experience, has now been appointed the new CEO.
He only took up that appointment some four months after his predecessor had
departed.
Meanwhile, the Board of AFTRS is in what some would call
disarray. It lacks a Chair and does not have sufficient numbers to make serious
decisions about the school’s future activities. The fault for this lies with
the Turnbull Government which has refused thus far to appoint a new Chair and
fill the statutorily required nine positions. The former Chair Julianne Schultz
served only one term and it is assumed will not be re-appointed. She is
possibly a victim of the Abbott/Credlin/Turnbull policy of not renewing
statutory appointments made by the previous Labor Government. An enquiry to
Professor Schultz asking whether she was available for re-appointment brought
the following response “Unfortunately (Professor Schultz) is currently overseas
and will be unable to answer your query immediately but she should be able to
get in touch upon her return at the end of December.” However, we’ve reached
that time and no news is forthcoming.
At its final meeting for the year Cabinet did not fix up the
vacancies on the AFTRS Council before its members headed either for the beach
or for study tours and ministerial consultations in northern climes including
apparently in Hong Kong, though I may have got the timing of unseemly matters
out of whack. Notwithstanding any excuses, the capacity of the Council to make
decisions thus remains in near limbo until February.
For an extended analysis of AFTRS history and current
activities check back to the Film Alert 101 blog over the next couple of days
when a further insightful forensic analysis will be posted.