THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: That art education in the State needs to be improved has long been painted as a dire need, the first creative step the LDF Government has taken in this direction has kicked up a row.
On the wrong end of the controversy is an academic expert committee the Government formed to suggest ways to improve art education and the committee’s report to the Government.
The big proposal, and the most controversial one, in the report is a centre of excellence in visual arts.
On a number of counts, the report is being alleged as cooked up and manipulated. Three of the five members of the committee, including its chairman, were reportedly not present during the inspection of the fine arts colleges in Thiruvananthapuram, Mavelikkara and Thrissur. But they are cited as signatories to the report, allegedly without their consent.
A section of the teachers of the Fine Arts College, Thiruvananthapuram, had lodged complaints with the Principal Secretary, Government of Kerala, the Director of Technical Education (DTE) and the Joint Director (Charge of Fine Arts), DTE, against the report.
They have alleged “blatant manipulation” by a particular individual to get the centre of excellence sanctioned.
The Higher Education Department issued orders for setting up the committee on January 21 to “visit and make proposals for the development of art education in the fine arts colleges in Thiruvananthapuram and Thrissur and the RRV College of Fine Arts, Mavelikkara.” With A.Ramachandran as its chairman, the committee had as members Deepak Kanal, Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University, Baroda; Sivakumar, principal, Kalabhavan, Shantiniketan, Viswabharathi University, West Bengal; V.Ramesh, HoD, Department of Painting, Andhra University; and Prakash Moorthy, visiting professor, National Institute of Design (NID), Ambani Centre of Excellence in Visual Arts.
The DTE and S.Ajayakumar, principal of the Fine Arts College, Thiruvananthapuram, were officiating members of the committee.
The terms of reference of the committee were as follows: Examine the problems and possibilities of current art education system in the state; propose necessary academic reforms; to work out a general art education policy for all art institutions in the state; explore the possibilities for introducing art history/aesthetics in other disciplines of social sciences; possibilities of integrating animation studies and, finally, explore the possibilities for setting up a new centre of excellence for visual arts with focus on postgraduate and research programmes.
Only Sivakumar and V.Ramesh visited the colleges as required by the Government. But no minutes of the meetings with the teachers were kept, the inspection itself was “casual and indifferent,” says the complaint. The colleges at Mavelikkara and Thrissur were visited on a single day. The committee reached Thrissur around 5 p.m. and met “three teachers for a few minutes,” says the complaint.
Surprisingly, the proposal for the Centre of Excellence takes precedence in the report over everything else. In fact, the title of the report reads: `Report of the expert committee on the setting (up) of a new centre of excellence for visual arts and the development of art education at the existing colleges of fine arts.’ In the second part of the report, the committee has cited proposals for improving infrastructure facilities in fine arts colleges.
The three-page report ends with the cryptic sentence, “Once the nucleus of the academic faculty for the centre is formed, separate committees dealing with each subject/area can work out at all other issues and details.”
No scope for controversy
Committee chairman A.Ramachandran told to this website’s newspaper over phone from New Delhi that the report offered no scope for a controversy.
“The main intention of the committee was to study the scope for a `superstructure’ in fine arts education in the state.
Currently, the courses stop at BFA. The committee looked into the scope for higher studies such as MFA and PhD,” he said.