Can Animation Learning Be Mainstream?

The landscape of education is Singapore is as traditional as it gets. A student attends class and writes notes. A student studies hard by memorizing theories and equations. A student aces the exams. He or she graduates, gets a good job and lives happily ever after.

Yeah, right.

Very few have ever succeeded following that route. Most of us have to understand theory, improve our skills, and compete with others just to be successful. No path is necessarily better than any other as we work through life and become affected by the wrong choices everyone makes during their lifetime.

The education landscape in Singapore is still very conservative. Choosing animation over other art-based or technical courses is still considered a “gamble” considering the very limited career prospects students assume are available once they graduate. The government is pushing the digital media industry with a boost in financial and infrastructure support, though I am not seeing much in the fundamental areas, namely creating large-scale awareness and developing courses that produce productive graduates. In a slang vernacular, we call this putting the cart before the horse.

To provide logistics and money for an industry that does not have a competitive skills base is similar to constructing a shopping centre in the middle of the desert, it just does not make any sense (though it has happened).

Parents are the moral pillars and gatekeepers of a child’s interest. Many still do not accept the notion that courses like 3D animation may provide a substantial path for their children’s future. Neither do many realize that Pixar animated films and similar movies require the services of serious, committed adults with a complete education in digital graphics.

But it is not happening. Singapore’s education system is still based on good academic grades, which apparently equates to everything good in life. Parents need to know the long-term benefits of investing their savings in their children’s education and learning 3D animation can potentially bring good income to the family. Singaporeans being at heart Asian wholeheartedly believe in the well being of their loved ones before themselves.

How do you make the parents see that learning animation can lead their children into a serious career? The government’s help in influencing the Singapore public to see the potential of the industry is still beneficial. However it was a very bad move that some local animation schools have to resort to using financial subsidies to attract students. Studying animation is no longer about the quality of the course for Singaporeans, now it is about the subsidy. Surely there are better solutions than using money as a carrot.

Are subsidies a good way to promote the industry? Bribing students (or their parents) with low prices? It may encourage more enrolment, but the situation becomes complicated because if we just add more carrots for students to study animation, the popularity of this study is then based purely on price and not creating the right kind of talent.

Can it be that the economic landscape is not big enough for so many types of industries in this tiny island? Singapore aims to be a hub for everything and anything that brings in money. The population is too small; the awareness is not at the desired levels and the concept that 3D animation is child’s play and not part of the digital revolution that Singapore claims to be deeply involved in.

Singaporeans in general lead a very comfortable life. Attending workshops to listen to the truth about working in an animation studio (having a poor social life and working hard based on their passion) is alarming to many Singaporeans and not what they were told in polytechnic. Many are not sure if they can balance the input of working 3 months for a 10-minute film compared to other professions.

So can animation be regarded as an “acceptable” career path in Singapore? Probably, in a few years, if there is enough publicity, awareness and commerce realized from investors (there is another article in that theory). The technical aspects can be daunting to many but hopefully with simplified technology, greater awareness of future career paths, and the potential growth of the industry, we can make learning animation suitable to the mainstream. High school graduates, parents, teachers and the government may be convinced that it is not such a bad option after all.