Issue no: 06
In a country that has a high level of youth
unemployment as South Africa, art
entrepreneurship would come in handy to try
and bridge the gap that leaves many sitting
at home after obtaining qualifications that
were encouraged in schools more than
pursuing the arts. Works of art, regardless of
kind, have become commodities and can be
counted as consumer goods. Everyone has
something to express, and whether you are
a writer, a painter, a sculptor or a performer,
what an artist does is take an idea and
breathe life into it so it can become a reality.
With proper training and attention of our
creative skills from a young age in school,
taking a vision and cultivating it reality
through creation of art will be easy, and that
merged with proper marketing will reach a
wide range of customers and clients, and as
a result, will also offer employment to not
only the writer, but cast members as well, for
an example.
The non-prioritizationof the arts in schools
perpetuates the lack of creativity, lack of
diverse cultural exposure, lack of
understanding of others, and lack of arts
entrepreneurship within the society, and
contributes nothing to fighting
unemployment in the country. It is for this
reason that the government should invest in
the arts as much as it does to the math and
science, adequate resources to harness the
arts should be put in place and teachers in
arts education should be given proper
training and support.
After all, it was the great president South
Africa has ever had, Thabo Mbeki, who said,
“Without the arts, we run the risk of
becoming a nation of housing and taps, and
their practice is not a luxury reserved for the
www.megaartists.co.za
idle rich, but an affirmation that our humanity
presents a call for individuals and societies
to a form of behaviour which must respect
the individuality of each person and the
humanity of all”
May the arts reach a point where by they are
accorded the equal status with other
subjects across the educational curriculum,
and may our teachers and the society as
large not only look at the arts as a subject
that contributes to our social development
and understanding, but also as a subject
that can contribute immensely to the
economy of the country and have the ability
to bridge the unemployment gap, as well as
an instrument to making life more
meaningful.
The main purpose of education should be to
lead learners to their optimal realisation of
their full and unique potential. There is a
need to offer more lessons about things that
contribute most to social harmony and
cohesion; integrity, creativity, truth, social
development, perception alteration, dignity,
contribution, team work, entrepreneurship,
diversity, and cooperation. And these all can
be instilled in our children and us as the
society, through art education. We shouldn't
be striving towards being a society of
housing and taps.
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Librarian and Studying Masters in Information studies
Nov-Dec 2015
Page 17