Intellectual Conversation about the Status of Arts Education in South Africa

Overview & Synopsis

This article challenges faculties of the arts in South African institutions of higher education to place arts education at the centre of academic inquiry, scholarship discovery and broaden their narrow understanding of "arts education". I argue for the recognition of a broad-based "arts education" or "faculties of the comprehensive arts education". Such a broad-based approach to the teaching of the arts is not limited to the arts sector, but also includes heritage, cultural management and policy, culture and urban regeneration, culture and rural development, cultural planning, culture and economic development or creative economies, citizenship and immigration, management of cultural diversity, management in entertainment, cultural law and arts education pedagogy and teacher training. The conceptualisation of arts education studies as a field of public inquiry is relatively old and has generated much literature. Thus I wish to argue here that there is good and valid ground to venture into and move towards comprehensive arts education faculties in a broadly conceived fashion. (Contains 5 endnotes.)