CULTURE is big business nowadays. Firms operating under the culture and heritage banner now have a combined annual turnover of around £500 million.
They generate the equivalent of almost 35,000 full-time and part-time jobs, according to a recent report by Coopers and Lybrand.
However, other surveys have pointed to a lack of basic business and communications skills among the staff at Irish cultural venues.
Dundalk Regional Technical College has come up with a new diploma programme in Applied Cultural Studies with a view to filling some of the skill gaps in the sector. The programme is three years in duration with the course work spread over six semesters. There is a strong practical element built into the programme. Students will be expected to put on plays, participate in overseas exchanges and study marketing, finance and the emerging area of multimedia.
"The impetus for the diploma arose from our awareness that a gap exists in the provision of humanities courses in the North East," says college registrar Stephen McManus. The initiative is a completely new departure for an institution which has concentrated on technical fields such as electronics since its establishment 25 years ago.
Dundalk RTC is keen to increase the number of females on its student roll. Currently 45 per cent of the students are women. McManus would like to see this figure rise to 50 per cent and he believes that the new diploma should be of help in this regard.
The college is in the middle of a major investment programme at present. There are ambitious plans for new library facilities for example.
It is consciously seeking to broaden its appeal, though programme co-ordinator Eileen Murphy points out that the new diploma course is strongly practical in focus and does not seek to replicate existing humanities degree programmes offered by other third-level institutions.
Forty students have signed on for the first year, about half of them from outside the Dundalk catchment area. The entry requirement was 280 points, which is high by Dundalk standards.
"The diploma programme is divided into four main strands," says Murphy. "The first covers Irish civilisation and heritage. The second deals with art, theatre and communication, the third with practical issues of organisation, finance and marketing and the final strand is centered on the teaching of languages."
Course participants have to be fairly versatile. They will be expected to take part in archaeological field trips, make oral presentations using graphical displays, put on events, perform in plays or alternatively shoot films and participate in overseas student exchanges.
Eileen Murphy insists that the students will not be spreading themselves too thinly. She believes that they will emerge ready and equipped to head straight into the workplace.
By the end of the three-year period, it is anticipated that the first batch of students will be given the option of taking a degree after a further year's study. The college is building links with a number of institutions including Queen's University and the German cultural organisation, Gaeltacht Irland Reisen.
Students will attend courses in archaeological methods, landscape, information technology, finance for cultural enterprises, contemporary Irish politics and the Irish economy.
The number of tourists visiting Ireland is targeted to reach eight million by 2010. Even if this rather ambitious goal is not met, there should be plenty of work available in the myriad of culture-based industries. After all, over 100,000 people are now employed by special effects companies in California alone, while the audiovisual sector now dwarfs traditional American export earners such as the aerospace industry.
Says Stephen McManus: "Demand for such skills is bound to grow. As countries such as Ireland become more affluent, the percentage spent on cultural activities will be on the increase."
