EDITORIAL:
Issue 24 — Autumn 2000
Issue 24 — Autumn 2000
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In this issue we examine the debate surrounding photographic education. This is a period of major changes within the education 'business' and the new 'knowledge based economy'. David Blunkett the Secetary of State for Education has outlined a 'coherent ladder of vocational learning, rooted in school and moving through foundation and advanced modern apprenticeship into foundation degrees and work based qualifications'. The new degree which 'could apply to the arts and humanities' and which is designed for 'business and industry', has been welcomed by Dr Sean Farren the Minister of Higher and Further Education in Northern Ireland. NTL, Marks and Spencer and British Telecom are just some of businesses already involved in the education process.
Linda McClelland highlights the lack of provision for photography in primary and secondary schools. Caractacus Potts identifies a predatory ideology at large within higher education which actually seeks to retard the development of individual intellect. He questions whether there is the will to forge a 'radical' photographic education. Justin Carville seeks radicalism in the discussion of the history of Irish photography specifically through a model that 'incorporates everything and excludes nothing'. Siún Hanrahan examines the various approaches available in current degree programmes in terms of their emphases on vocational or humanist ideals.
Ciarán Spencer revisits County Clare where he spent his summer holidays as a child and attempts 'to bridge the gap between past memory and present reality.' A more claustaphobic form of remembering is found in Ann Marie Curran's sequence Celibacy. Ann McNamee has been photographing the 'ordinary moments which make up regular life' for young people in New York, Dublin and London.
Hannah Starkey's photo-fictions have recently been shown in the Irish Museum of Modern Art. We publish them here next to a newly commissioned story by Anne Enright.
— Editors