From visual and media training to the labour market - Survey on the situation of graduates

he survey carried out in autumn 2003 examined the occupational and labour market structure of students after graduation. The study is a part of the Arts Council project “Professional training of artists”. The objective of the project is to produce an overall picture of the effects and structure of artists' professional training and the changes which have taken place in this field of education over the past decades. The project follows the one carried out at the Research Unit of the Arts Council in the 1990s, when university level training of artists was studied.

Since the aim of the project is to go through all art fields, it was decided that the first survey would concentrate on graduates of audiovisual media, graphic design and fine arts. The reason for this was that the intake of students in these degree programmes has increased faster than in other fields of art and culture education. Thus, the discussion on the relation between training and employment has also been quite active. The motive for connecting the three – rather different – fields stems from the system of professional training, since in official titles of degree programmes these areas are usually combined.