Preparing graduates for creative futures : Australian creative arts programs in a globalising society

One of the recent growth areas in tertiary education is the creative arts, now taught from undergraduate to doctoral level in institutions across the country and globally. At the same time, the creative industries sector – those knowledge-intensive industries that rely on creativity and talent as core attributes, and that systematise and circulate the intellectual property generated by these creative workers – has increasingly been recognised by many as sustaining the growth momentum of advanced economies. Both the creative arts in universities and the creative industries sector readily shift from a local to a global perspective, with creative practices and technologies at the frontier of the cross-cultural communication and global interaction that underpins the creative industries. In this paper we focus on specific disciplines in the creative arts to investigate the tertiary education sector’s investment in creativity. Higher education is one of the key potential generators of creative skills, and most universities list creativity as a graduate attribute. The sector in Australia, however, remains largely unexamined with regard to how, and how well, it develops and enhances the creativity of its graduates. Recently a number of criticisms – from the public, employers, the media and various government bodies – have been levelled at universities, and at their creative arts programs. Those programs have been challenged to show that they do, in fact, adequately prepare their students for the future, and to work between and across local and global milieux. How those involved in such programs respond to these challenges will affect the sustainability and growth of the university sector, and may impact upon the viability of the creative industries globally.