After sitting on a panel to approve a bachelor’s programme for one polytechnic, I was dismayed to read right after that some of the courses were being cut.
I alluded to a disinterest in learning about design in an earlier post, but I was put right by some young people who said their courses were well attended and the interest is certainly there. But teaching institutions are being placed under severe pressure to turn a profit. Some might say this stems from a high-level misunderstanding about monetary theory and how governments work versus corporate or household budgets. They are different beasts.
The second position is that if there is no misunderstanding, and ideology is behind weakening this country’s creative sector, then that is deeply unfortunate for an economy.
The third position is that it is not ideology, but excessive fiscal caution, which seems fair, but also unfortunate for an economy long-term.
Even the most amateur of investors will understand the idea of investment, where you fork out some money in the belief it will net you a greater return later down the track. If any sector qualifies, surely it is this one?
The late Merrill J. Fernando told me that he invested in colour presses and the ability to handle packaging in Sri Lanka so that his tea brand, Dilmah, would have its greatest value-added component done domestically. Dilmah, then, would not be a commodity. Others, meanwhile, continued to deal with foreign companies who bought their tea as commodities, and did the value-added component in their own countries, enriching themselves in the process.
Merrill faced great odds, particularly with people around the world telling him that it could not be done. I experienced this myself with font software, a far less capital-intensive industry, when New Zealanders told me that that couldn’t be done, either: that designs would always be digitalized by foreign companies that would publish the software. It could not be done domestically. Even after I had been doing it for seven or eight years, and gained a name overseas for me and Aotearoa, I was still being told this by design media and part of the industry here, who obviously didn’t take in international press. Thank God this thinking is now in the past.
We know that Dilmah has since become one of Sri Lanka’s great brands, one where Sri Lankans have been lifted up, and continue to be lifted up with the business under the stewardship of Merrill’s sons and grandchildren. It is a globally recognized brand.
To limit the creative sector while boosting primary products is to value one over the other, when both are important.
But valuing primary and not the value-added components that turn commodities into desirable brands means that certain powers that be want foreigners to benefit from making greater profits, not New Zealanders.
It is up to the sector to lobby for its own good, and to ensure we have a new generation of experts ready to lead. Some of it is already happening but there are so many of us who need to be part of this effort, on behalf of this country.
“AI” prompting is never going to overcome the need for originality and many of us can tell what has been generated. Like every technology, the bar gets shifted, but so does the ability to detect what is real. The latter lags behind a bit, but not as much as some might think.
Every designer, musician, actor, dancer, filmmaker, singer, illustrator, artist, and others, be they professional or budding, full- or part-time, needs to consider how a strong community makes us all stronger.
We are the ones who do the value addition, who bring in more money and foreign exchange, who strengthen our economy. And in a modern, 21st-century economy, we are the ones who bring in those intangibles that any knowledgeable business person knows raises value.
You may also like
