Is Hong Kong Savannah's art suspension doomed?

01 perspective

Written by: Comment Editor

2020-03-16 18:30

Savannah Design University of Hong Kong (SCAD) announced on Friday (13) that it will cease operations from June 1 this year. SCAD is better known for its former campus is the North Kowloon Magistracy, a Grade II historical building. It is from the United States and established a branch campus in Hong Kong in 2010. It specializes in art, design and digital media courses. At that time, the ambition was only ten years after the school was opened. What was the "cause of death"?

In 2010, SCAD opened in Hong Kong and was approved for land use by the government. SCAD promised to self-finance conservation and management. (Profile picture / Photo by Luo Junhao)

Expensive local and difficult overseas

According to the 2020 QS World University Rankings, the Savannah College of Art and Design in the United States ranks 16th in the United States in art and design, and 36th in the world, on par with Oxford University. The colleges offer subjects including animation, film and television, illustration, graphic design, and fashion. 92% of students graduated into their professional fields and have performed well in the industry.

In 2010, SCAD opened in Hong Kong and was approved for land use by the government. SCAD promised to self-finance conservation and management. Savannah came to Hong Kong to do the "cross the river". The original intention was to target the Asian education market, hoping to attract mainland students to enroll, but the wishful thinking at the time did not start. The school has a goal of enrolling 300 students each year. The number of students has not reached the target as of last year. As of 2019/20, the number of students is still only half of the target. In terms of finance, the school has also recorded losses for eight consecutive years, with a cumulative loss of 320 million. The latest annual report is even more outspoken. Without the financial support of the US headquarters, the Hong Kong campus would not even be operational.

The failure of colleges to get on track for many years is partly due to the fact that the school's positioning can neither meet local needs nor attract foreign students. On the one hand, the annual tuition fee of SCAD is nearly 400,000 yuan. Compared with other UGC-funded degrees in Hong Kong, the tuition fee is almost ten times as much. If students' families are constrained by the economic environment, most of them choose other arts degrees in Hong Kong, and even choose to apply for business courses. As for the students with good economic conditions, since the tuition fees are close to those in other places, parents will tend to send their children to Europe and the United States to study art instead of Hong Kong.

North Kowloon Magistracy ceased operation in 2005 and is now activated as Savannah University of Art and Design (Hong Kong). (Profile picture)

Art education is not an air tower

Although SCAD offers non-local courses, not ordinary local post-secondary institutions, but its provision of art education in Hong Kong should help promote the development of Hong Kong art in a broad sense. Therefore, the announcement of its suspension now can be described as a failure of the "high-priced aristocracy" of local arts education. It is also time for the government to bring local arts training to the ground. The government should see it as one of the ways to build a diverse path for young people, not a million-dollar educational commodity. In recent years, in addition to "STEM" becoming an indispensable mantra for middle school education, people in the education industry have also added "Art" to it and become "STEAM". Art is not limited to paintings and sculptures imagined by ordinary citizens. Art also exists in new media such as design, animation, advertising, and games.

To cope with the development of arts in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Government should consider providing school sites and cooperating with tertiary institutions in Hong Kong to invest resources in vocational training in arts, or even in secondary schools. In the past, our education in Hong Kong had put too much emphasis on academic ability. Examination results have become the criterion for judging students '"good or bad", but students' talents in art and other aspects have been ignored. The Government can take this opportunity to allocate the school site to various tertiary institutions for vocational training purposes, to train local talents in art and design, and to provide multiple outlets for students with less academic abilities. The government can even run an "applied learning" course in middle schools as a condition for granting land to advance art training before graduating from middle school, so that students who are interested in participating in the art industry can get in touch with the subjects of interest as soon as possible. In addition to reading good books and taking good exams, young people still have many ways to go.

Review report affirms Yang Runxiong's further step in vocational education

[Post-secondary education. 3] Find a way out for development Can Hong Kong's higher education be industrialized?

[Vocational Education] Is the dream of a "multiple approach" restricted to the new academic system?

01 perspective

Art Education 01