Richard Wallis and Christa van Raalte argue for greater honesty and pragmatism in addressing the talent pipeline.

The prominence of the creative industries in the UK government’s industrial strategy as one of eight growth sectors to be prioritised will be welcomed by most of us involved in screen education. It is as yet unclear, however, how the proclaimed undertaking to develop an appropriately skilled workforce will manifest itself. The CMS Committee report on British films and high-end television published in April this year calls for ‘closer alignment between what is offered in formal education settings and the production sector’s needs’ (para 123), citing evidence that degree programmes ae not training students for the jobs that need doing, leaving talented young people unprepared for careers in these industries – a deficit attributed to a lack of coordination across the HE sector and a lack of connection between education and industry. These are not new charges, neither are they beyond dispute, but they raise the question of how Universities should respond to the challenge.

Successive governments (and government sponsored agencies) over the past thirty years have sought to establish a more effective talent pipeline from specialist HE programmes into the screen industries. Yet each attempt encounters similar pitfalls. The good intentions of policy makers, educators and industry actors alike are too often undermined by persistent misunderstandings and confusion about these complex and ever-changing sectors. Meanwhile the imperfectly imagined needs of industry are too often emphasised at the expense of the needs of students.  As a result, successive initiatives have largely failed either to improve the student experience or to solve the screen industries’ skills gaps. With effective, replicable partnerships figuring as the exception rather than the rule.

We suggest that a better quality of conversation between HE and industry is now needed, and that to facilitate this we must first lay to rest six persistent myths that have too often dominated HEI-industry partnership discourse.  We define these ‘myths’ as a set of inaccurate and sometimes contradictory, assumptions that, while not always entirely false tend to oversimplify and distort what is realistic and desirable for future collaboration between Higher Education and the screen industries.

Myth 1: ‘Universities exist primarily to serve the needs of employers’

This assumption is one of the least helpful features of recent policy discourse. In fact, universities serve a range of stakeholders and beneficiaries, but their primary responsibility is to their (fee-paying) students. This responsibility includes maximising their prospects of employment on graduation. However today’s graduate is unlikely to be heading for a stable, consistent, long-term occupation – particularly if that graduate is entering the screen industries, where work is based on contingent and individualised arrangements. The current HE watchword ‘employability’[i] is best understood, in this context, as career readiness – the knowledge and skills necessary to manage an individual career over time. Of course, we want to ensure that industry can draw on a broad skills base for its graduate workforce, but we do so by prioritising the immediate and long-term interests of our students, not simply the short-term ‘needs of the employer’.

Myth 2: ‘The screen industries do not require a graduate workforce’

While few jobs in production require a formal qualification, the fact is that 72% of screen industry workers are graduates, with that proportion rising among a younger cohort.[ii]  The characteristics traditionally associated with ‘graduateness’, moreover, are very much in demand across the sector. The sector’s reticence about the importance of HE to media employment can be attributed to three factors: it has become a way to emphasise the non-academic nature of many of the generic skills that are considered essential; it supports (and is supported by) the culture of ‘paying one’s dues’ – the idea that new entrants, irrespective of qualifications, must prove themselves in the menial roles before they can progress; and in recent years an argument has developed that the industry can tackle the longstanding lack of diversity in its workforce by a fast-track approach to particular roles that circumvents the need for university education (although whether this strategy serves the long-term interests of its ‘beneficiaries’ is unclear).

Myth 3: ‘Media work requires media graduates’

The fact that media employers chiefly employ graduates does not mean that these graduates are necessarily drawn mainly from media courses. Graduates who work within the screen industries, in practice, are drawn from the full gamut of science, social science and humanities degree programmes.  Indeed ‘hard to fill’ vacancies across the industry typically include accountants and lawyers as well as non-graduate roles such as carpenters and electricians.[iii]  This is not to say specialist or ‘vocational’ degrees are without value: on the contrary they provide a route into industry for many graduates and bring added value to employers. But given actual hiring practices, it is difficult to support any argument that a mediadegree is the pre-requisite for work in the screen sector.

Myth 4: ‘The value of a media degree is determined by how well it prepares students for entry-level media jobs’

Again, this assumption (which underpins a succession of accreditation schemes) is difficult to support, given that graduates working in the screen industries are not drawn in any systematic way from media courses.  This is not to arguethat ‘practical’, ‘vocational’ or ‘industry-oriented’ courses have no distinctive value for employers.  On the contrary, with the erosion of employer-led entry-level training provision, subject-specific knowledge and practical media skills provide a valuable grounding for many industry roles. Given the extent to which media work is now integral to a range of sectors, moreover, media graduates are able to leverage their skillsets to access a much wider range of careers. It is, therefore, by no means clear that students are best served by courses that set out to be exclusively ‘specialist’ in terms of current occupations within the screen industries alone – occupations which, it should be noted, are under the constant threat of obsolescence.

Myth 5: ‘Practice-based and “practical” courses exist primarily to produce “set-ready” graduates for specific industry roles’

This is the pitch that many universities make to potential students and is often the reason students give when asked why they chose a particular course.  However, the complexity of student motivations are frequently misunderstood, as is the critical purpose that practice plays within pedagogy. Many students who choose such ‘practical’ courses identify themselves as practical people who learn in a practical way.[iv]  For many such students, these courses provide a path through HE that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Courses that foreground ‘practice’, then, open the doors of higher education to a wider constituency of students than might otherwise benefit – and offer employers a richer diversity of talent on which to draw. Thus university-based media practice is as much a means to education as it is an end.

Myth 6: ‘Universities are a barrier to industry diversity’

On the contrary, while universities face challenges around recruiting and retaining a diverse student body, the greatest challenges for aspiring graduates from minoritized groups are their lower employment prospects on leaving university. The lack of diversity within the UK screen industries’ workforce is well documented, and seems set to deteriorate under current economic pressures, notwithstanding successive initiatives. A more diverse industry is clearly an important goal towards which greater HEI-industry partnership and collaboration could profitably be focused, but this is unlikely to happen if the idea prevails that universities are the principal barrier.

Beyond the mythos

Whilst collectively incoherent, these myths have dominated discourse about higher education’s relationship with the screen industries, holding together sufficiently well to effectively undermine progress towards collaboration and partnership. We call for greater honesty on the part of educators, industry stakeholders and policy makers alike, looking beyond vested interests to develop authentic relationships in the interests of our industries and our students alike.

Note: Our recent article on this topic, published in Media Practice and Education, can be accessed here: https://doi-org.bournemouth.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/25741136.2025.2485934.

Richard Wallis is a teacher and researcher based at the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) at Bournemouth University. His research includes a focus on the experience of work in the media industries and the role of media education and pedagogy in the preparation of young people aspiring to work within these industries. Dr. Wallis was formerly an Executive Producer within the television production group, Twofour.

Christa van Raalte is Associate Professor in Film and Television and Head of the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) at Bournemouth University. Her research addresses the experience of working in the television industry, retention and the ‘leaky’ talent pipeline, management practices, workplace bullying and media education. Dr van Raalte also publishes on representations of gender and on narrative strategies in film and television texts.

 

FOOTNOTES

[i] For a fuller discussion of the origin and function of the idea of employability, see Wallis, 2021.

[ii] These statistics are based upon the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Annual Population Survey (APS) in 2020 and gathered by SIC code.

[iii] AS listed in successive Screenskills reports, for example.

[iv] For graduate reflections to this effect, see Wallis, van Raalte and Allegrini, 2020