Educators have been urged to do more to expose students to the wide range of career opportunities available in the orange economy, as concerns grow over declining enrolment in arts programmes at the secondary level.
Renee Taylor, a trained graduate teacher at Springer Memorial School, made the call while speaking to reporters at the school’s art exhibition and panel discussion, part of the school-based assessment (SBA) for Performing Arts sixth-form students. The assignment, for the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE), requires them to conceptualise and execute a practical, revenue-generating project.
Taylor explained: “Today is the culmination of these CAPE Performing Arts students, their SBA for Unit One of CAPE. They have to put on an event, have to research first of all, find a problem that they want to solve with creativity, create an event to address that problem and evaluate its success.”
“It has to be a paying concern according to the syllabus, so they have to market it and, you know, real world in every way possible.”
The students chose to host an arts exposition aimed at reversing a troubling trend – declining interest in creative disciplines such as visual arts, music, fashion and culinary arts, she said.
“They decided to put on an arts exposition to try to boost the numbers of students who are enrolling in our arts programmes…because we found that since COVID really the numbers of enrolment have been declining.”
To better understand the issue, the students conducted research among their peers, which revealed several misconceptions about careers in the arts.
Taylor said: “Some of the things that they outlined were that they did not think it was a viable career path, it wasn’t financially stable, there wasn’t prestige attached to it…what their peers thought about it was also important.”
She added that limited exposure to the arts at the school level was another significant barrier.
“There wasn’t enough engagement in the arts at that level either. There wasn’t a lot of them that were really enrolled in drama programmes, dance programmes, so that was part of the exposure as well as they didn’t see it as a viable career opportunity locally.”
In response, the exposition brought together a range of creative professionals and institutions to demonstrate the viability of careers in the industry.
“We brought practitioners, we brought former alumni – Sheena Rose – these are people that actually do make a career in the arts so they can give them individual experience and real-life experience as to how it is possible to make a career in the arts viable locally.”
Participants also included representatives from key cultural organisations and institutions, offering students insight into both academic and professional pathways.
Taylor said: “They’re also gonna give them some academic options as well…we have people from the National Cultural Foundation…and the curator from the Barbados Museum just to give them sort of a, how do we move from here?”
She stressed that while students may begin studying the arts in school, greater guidance is needed to help them transition into sustainable careers.
“You can start studying it at school and then what options are there for you to study further your studies and then make a career from it.”
The teacher maintained that increasing awareness and engagement is critical to reshaping perceptions and unlocking the economic potential of the creative industries.
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