Save Digital Media!

TAFE NSW is planning on scrapping their Digital Media courses and replacing them with an IT Diploma that has a few subjects of a similar nature.

Previously, due to an agreement between TAFE NSW (Wagga Wagga) and Charles Sturt University, graduates of the Diploma in Digital Media have been able to articulate directly into the third year of a Bachelor of Arts (Multimedia). This has been largely due to the outstanding quality of work produced by our students, as well as the years of dedication and hard work by the teaching staff.

Thanks to the hasty and ill-thought decision of TAFE NSW, students will no longer be able to take advantage of this agreement. Additionally, students who enrolled in the course at the beginning of this year, under the assumption that they too would be able to go on to university, now find themselves stranded – in any sane situation, that would be considered a breach of contract.

TAFE NSW contends that the course they have instituted in place of Digital Media covers the same subjects and achieves the same outcomes – this is patently false. The new course contains no practical art subjects and has what amounts to a brief overview of animation and design. Students who complete this course will not be able to transfer their skills to university and hope to gain any subject credit. Additionally, the new course will be promoted under the name “IT (Multimedia)”, which has the potential to turn away scores of young people intimidated by academia.

Australia is already far behind the rest of the world when it comes to the arts, music, film and animation – do we really want to work towards making our nation even further behind? There is nothing to say about this pitiful decision, save that it is just not okay. It is tremendously short sighted; it may make sense in the short term, it will certainly improve the TAFE NSW bottom line – but at what cost to the community? How many more young people will leave Wagga Wagga because we don’t value the arts?

Sign this petition and help put pressure on TAFE NSW to reverse this decision immediately. For them to do anything less is tantamount to spitting on the efforts of both past students and the hard working teachers of Digital Media.