Save Creative Writing in TAFE

Contact the author of the petition

This discussion topic has been automatically created of petition Save Creative Writing in TAFE.

Mari Lourey
Guest

#76 You must reconsider this

2010-11-29 05:14

As an award winning playwright who studied at RMIT between 2000 and 2003, I wish to reiterate that the importance of the current Tafe Prof Writing and Editing Course cannot be underestimated in terms of the industry based practice and training it offers.

Creative writing is not a hobby! It leads to all manner of concrete outcomes, from the people who write our TV shows, plays and films, to the myriad of freelance writers who make their living as I do, from a variety of freelance activities, both creative writing (plays), editing, teaching and facilitating. The accessability of the Tafe environment along with industry based teachers mean that real, concrete skills are developed. Do not shorten this course. It will be to the detriment of our cultural and social capital.

Guest
Guest

#77 Re: Rob the writer

2010-11-29 05:32

#75: - Rob the writer 

You need the course Rob to develop a clear narrative.

Dawn Barr
Guest

#78 Save Creative Writing in TAFE

2010-11-29 09:08

I hear lots of radio personal dfeclare that books are finished in this computer age yet when I enter a bookshop there are always lots of folk seeking the inspiration a good book gives. We need well versed writers to teach people in ways that only books can do. To immerse yourself in a well written book of whatever genre is not only educational but relaxing and eases the stress of this technological age in which we live. Long live the good writer. Let's encourage would be writers by offering them a realistic chance to hone their skills.
Nicole Maslin
Guest

#79 Nicole Maslin

2010-11-29 17:44

It's important to save Creative Writing in educational institutions like universities and TAFE as it is a main avenue for new writers to move forward into higher degrees at university and to break into the publishing world. I say "don't stop the flow, keep it coming". Having completed my Masters in Publishing & Editing at Monash University last year, I can say with complete confidence that the country needs Creative Writing to remain complete, even to expand, but definitely not to diminish. Thank you for giving me the chance to vote.

Jacquie Rennie
Guest

#80 Dr Jacquie Rennie

2010-11-30 00:18

I am disappointede in the new arramgements to the Diploma of Professional Writing In the newly altered TAFE system.
I remebr ,in thepaist, the TAFE system was referred toas the salt of the earth. Well the salt has run out.
Tricia Veale
Guest

#81 Creative Writing is Vital

2010-11-30 03:38

It is important that creative writing survives. It is the backbone of society.
We all want to read the genres that interest us... many people (fortunately) want to write in their favourite genre.
The younger members of our society need training to appreciate the intricacies of writing valuable work to capture the reader.
Writing has been vital for centuries from ancient heiroglyphs cast in stone to pen on paper to e-books.
Let it continue!!!!
Sue Gannon
Guest

#82 Graduate. Dip PW&E (21675VIC)

2010-11-30 07:08

I have read a few pages of the curriculum document and had to stop because it broke my heart. The new curriculum has nothing to do with the profession of writing, nor with the art of writing. It has quite obviously been designed by accountants, because no professional of the publishing industry could possibly have seen any value to them in what is presented there (Editing doesn't count because without good (trained) writers there's nothing to edit.) As a graduate of the old course I found that two years was not long enough for everything I needed to learn. The new course has been cut to one year and has excluded all the subjects I needed more of. As a student of writing I can only be grateful that the old course existed when I needed it. The new course would have been a waste of time and effort for me.
Nola Wernicke
Guest

#83 Petition for PWE

2010-11-30 08:35

If this new re accredited course goes ahead next year, I believe there will be a drop in student numbers. Some wonderful writing and writers have come through the PWE at TAFE. For some, this is their only outlet. It is a much needed training ground for the next generation of Australian writers. If the creative side is depleted, then what sort of message is being sent to the new writers and the ones already enrolled? That we don't mind taking your money, but you won't get the courses you want? I believe all genres have the right to be taught.
Yvonne (Eve) Old
Guest

#84 Ms

2010-11-30 12:17

As a former graduate of Professional Writing and Editing, Diploma of Arts Best Graduating Student and Studnt of the Year over all campuses, I fail to see hoe an adequate and comprehensive knowledge of these subjects could possibly be taught in a shortert peropd. Following my course at Victoria Univers8ity I am now a published author, prize-winner in literar6 contests and a prize-winner and performed playwright. As well I have been teaching weriting for ten years - try doing all that with a shorter and less comprehensive course!
Mark Smith
Guest

#85 Down with pragmatism in our education facilities!

2010-11-30 13:56

Australia has a proud history of the establishment and provision of high quality, inclusive and accessable education. I wish the author and stakeholders in this effort to ensure the TAFE program remains diverse, creative and expansive all the best!

Mark Smith
Head Teacher - Special Education
Mullumbimby High School
NSW
Glenys (G. L.) Osborne
Guest

#86 Long live creative PWE!

2010-11-30 22:21

The great thing about TAFE creative PWE courses is that they enable a student to gain vocational skills yet give the student some space in which to think creatively, mix with like-minded creative people (to develop a network of peers) and experiment with many different kinds of writing styles. Diminishing the creative component in TAFE PWE means that less-privileged would-be fiction writers who cannot (for whatever reason) attend a high-level creative-writing course at a university will be left in the cold.
I am a published fiction writer, a working editor and a teacher of editing up to masters level. I was also kicked out of school at the age of sixteen. I can say with absolute confidence that if it weren't for the RMIT creative PWE course I did many years ago, my career in the writing arts would simply not have got started. Long live creative PWE!
Eva
Guest

#87 Re: Course cost

2010-12-01 00:43

#52: Elise Hurst - Course cost 

 Sensibly and integrally said. 

Guest
Guest

#88 Re: For business and for pleasure

2010-12-01 00:44

#55: Amanda Burton - For business and for pleasure 

 That was me, sorry. 

Eva Shirazi
Guest

#89 Re: For business and for pleasure

2010-12-01 00:53

#55: Amanda Burton - For business and for pleasure 

 YES!  And are not birds at the so said beginning of the evolutionary line?   Don't misunderstand, I love communing with them, but there's only so much that can be said; 'what a nice day' or ' oh, there's rain coming.'  Or, are we perhaps on the verge of morphing into Walt Disney clones, I ask.

Fully morphing that is. 

Current Student and Published Author
Guest

#90 OK, I'm convinced

2010-12-01 03:33

What a wonderful debate! Read all the entries. Thought about it. I think I'll SIGN THE PETITION. And pass it on.
Guest
Guest

#91 Re: Graduate. Dip PW&E (21675VIC)

2010-12-01 05:30

#82: Sue Gannon - Graduate. Dip PW&E (21675VIC) 

 

Davidh Digman, Dip. PWE (21675VIC), Cert. IV TAA (TAA40104)
Guest

#92 Re: Graduate. Dip PW&E (21675VIC)

2010-12-01 05:38

#82: Sue Gannon - Graduate. Dip PW&E (21675VIC) 

 

As another graduate, I am appalled that I feel compelled to join you in appending course code 21675VIC to my post-nominal. Yet I must, for I do not wish my qualification being diminished by the inevitable association with the new monstrosity.

 

The author(s) of this travesty deserve endless shame for creating this soulless assault on what was a superb if still flawed course.

 

Are they actually trying to destroy this course?

 

It has been rendered irrelevant!

Davidh Digman, Dip. PWE (21675VIC), Cert. IV TAA (TAA40104)
Guest

#93 Re: Some facts

2010-12-01 05:54

#26: David Trembath - Some facts 

 

Dear Mr Trembath,

 

I should like to draw your attention to a couple of things you wrote in in your post:

 

"We added an editing unit where previously none had existed giving us some pause for thought when we wondered what had happened before in a course called writing and editing."

 

Okay, Mr Trembath, if "previously none (editing units) existed", then how the devil did I earn an HD in Editing 2?

 

Or have my RPL for Editing 1 approved?

 

Then, you begin your post with: "... but as the person who wrote the course ..."

 

"Wrote the course"? What exactly did YOU write?

 

Is it not the case that the new course consists of a group of Units of Competency written by other sources?

 

Are you claiming to own copyrigh overt those Units of Competency?

 

If you wrote this, is that not what you are saying?

 

If that is not what you meant, then what exactly do you mean?

Davidh Digman, Dip PWE (21675VIC), Cert. IV TAA (TAA40104)
Guest

#94 Re: Night of the long pens

2010-12-01 06:03

#6: Lewis Counihan - Night of the long pens 

Educational Fascists indeed!

 

Finally they have found something more bureaucratically efficient to do than burn the books.

 

Why not burn the writers' resources?

 

That way, there will be no books in need of burning.

 

At least they are saving the environment by not adding to global warming by pumping literary carbon into the air.

Ian Wilkinson
Guest

#95 If it ain't broke

2010-12-01 06:10

If it ain't broke then don't fix it. I completed this course over 10 years ago and have taught creative writing short courses. Everyone who does this course loves it and improves their lives through it, so why change it? David Trembath doesn't answer that in any meaningful way. Someone somewhere had a particular reason for wanting change. I suspect it emanated from the immensely disappointing Brumby and his bureaucrats who made a complete mess of the TAFE system, amongst other things, making it increasingly inaccessible and more expensive. But will the new regime be any more sympathetic to the creative people in our society?
Jeltje Fanoy
Guest

#96 Saving Accredited TAFE Writing & Editing

2010-12-01 06:49

This is very important course for students in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne who may not have access to any other form of Writing @ Editing Course in the Higher Education Sector.
Some of the students at NMIT are involved in a writing project funded by the Darebin City Council, already, and have shown great aptitude in the editing process especially.

This post has been removed by its writer (Show details)

2010-12-01 09:30



Guest

#98 Save Creative Writing in Tafe

2010-12-01 09:44

The Creative Writing course at BRIT in Victoria was a major catalyst for my return to tertiary studies and for writing creatively. I have since had poetry and nature writing published, and have almost finished my degree. Lesson learnt at BRIT I still use today in my creative and academic writing. Victoria is proud of its literary achievements and heritage - the UNESCO City of Literature remember!? - it would be a great blow to future writers if courses such as these were creatively diminished or 'watered down'. I strongly support this petition.
Julie Beeforth
Guest

#99

2010-12-01 10:06

I'm currently enrolled in the Professional Writing and Editing Course at TAFE, and have only one more subject to complete the Diploma. This course has been invaluable for its hands on nature in teaching the writing process. Fiction as well as non-fiction writing is a valid way to earn a living and both forms are necessary to help the creative juices flow. I would hate to think that this course will be compromised in the future for budding writers.
Kate O\'Donnell
Guest

#100 I want the qualification I signed up for

2010-12-01 13:01

I have made a number of complaints regarding the changes being made to the PWE course and not a single one of them has been responded to. Which demonstrates the top down policy approach that is being taken by government and institutions regarding the content of the course. The needs and desires of the students are being ACTIVELY ignored. I work in Government. I know how the policy makers work. They rarely reality test the impacts of their decisions on the people/systems their policies affect. Some bright spark comes up with the next brilliant idea and wants to put their name to it. Their CV looks impressive while the rest of us struggle to make sense of their 'brilliance'. Creativity in writing is as important in business as as anywhere else. Leave the creative content alone and let us get on with our qualification PLEASE!