Your coverage of the British Academy’s report on media courses in higher education was accurate and welcome (Media studies are popular, dynamic and have ‘profound impact’, report says, 11 June). Chatting with students earlier this month at the first degree show of UCL’s new media BA (a programme I co-designed), I was impressed by their integration of intellectual rigour with creative flair in film-making and video game design.
But education policy needs to examine the wider consequences. What’s true for higher education should also be true for schools, where, despite the popularity of media-related exam courses for 14- to 19-year olds, media studies has effectively been deleted from the curriculum over the last 14 years, having previously been a core component under Labour policy.
Your article rightly mentions the importance of media literacy, which is the responsibility of Ofcom but not the Department for Education. So in a failure of joined-up policy, it is not promoted in the school curriculum despite being presumed to be good for the general public. Some urgent policy questions face the incoming government if tomorrow’s university students are to be adequately prepared by the school curriculum.
Prof Andrew Burn
Emeritus professor of media, UCL Institute of Education
