Date: 15th September
Venue: London School of Mosaic, NW3 2HP London

The 'issue' of employability for fine art and other art and design graduates has accompanied our developments in arts education for a considerable time. There is evidence of lots of good practice in developing and making evident 'employability skills' for our graduates, that we should acknowledge and celebrate. However, the 'turn' to 'the professional employment of graduates, by the Office for Students, makes the issue an urgent one for fine art education to address. The Office for Students now sets part of conditions for registration that "The provider must deliver successful outcomes for all of its students, which are recognised and valued by employers, and/or enable further study." This puts a direct pressure on fine art and related subjects, with a potentially much greater 'threat' and greater challenge. 

Considering the pressures driven by metrics surrounding fine art and employability as a topic and the context of the ‘Office for Students’ coming down on subjects which do not offer immediate employment (within 15 months of graduation). What is fine art's reaction to this complex situation and strategies that can be applied to this? Is this about 'fight' or 'flight'-as it were? How do we make the case for fine art education's value in the increasingly starker context of what can be described as 'the monetization of higher education'?  How do we still ensure our students do benefit in all ways and senses from the core ‘fine art’ education we seek to provide? 

This year’s NAFAE annual conference seeks to share existing good practice, initiatives and solutions that have been already put in place by colleagues nationally in a spirit of collegiality. The aim is to turn what could be perceived as a challenge presented by institutional pressures around employability into an opportunity for acknowledging how much the fine art subject area is proactively responding in ways that help individual students and society more generally.