Quality assurance: how can you tell if a drama course is up to the grade?

Thomas also argues that drama schools are under pressure to keep expanding in order to remain financially viable, because “degree funding just does not pay for the level of contact time that a student needs to properly train”.

She says courses are expanding the number of students they are taking and shaving down contact hours. As a result, Thomas argues, smaller colleges are getting “squeezed out”.

Indeed the MTA closed in 2022 after “game-changing” validation that the school thought it was likely to get from Trinity College London – and subsequent funding as a result – was not secured in the time frame it needed to survive. The school first revealed financial difficulties in 2021.

Thomas argues that Trinity College London is a “gatekeeper” to funding streams for vocational performing arts colleges. She has been involved in a lengthy, ongoing dispute criticising Trinity’s validation process with the MTA.

Trinity College London has 22 course providers offering Professional Performing Arts Diplomas in the UK, and states that in the year 2022/23, 1,728 candidates were enrolled with a UK course provider and 569 candidates graduated with a Professional Performing Arts Diploma.

‘If you’ve got, say, 17 schools everyone thinks are providing the right training, and you say, ‘you’ve got to get into one of those to be a professional actor’, [there must be] adequate progression pathways for students of working-class families or diverse ethnicities to get every chance to get in’ – Hilary Strong, director of Making Theatre Gaining Skills

In response to Thomas’ comments, Trinity College London claims the MTA was “not achieving [the] standards” necessary to have its course validated. The MTA was seeking validation for a two-year diploma, which is run over three years by all other Trinity College London course providers.

It claims it “instigated a review of the validation process by an independent expert”, which was reportedly shared with the MTA in September 2022 and allegedly upheld the “integrity and diligence of [its] validation processes”.

Thomas also argues that the industry needs to “re-establish what elite training is”.

“I think we’ve lost that. We now get into a sort of factory training, and I think that’s to the detriment of the industry, and indeed, to the students,” she adds.

“We’re in an oversaturated industry, and we’re churning more and more people out, and more and more of those people are substandard.”

This view is echoed by Hilary Strong, who was director of the National Council for Drama Training from 2007 to 2010 and is now director of theatre training organisation Making Theatre Gaining Skills. Strong references the large number of acting courses run by universities, as opposed to specialist drama schools, and argues that students on these courses have “limited” chances of “getting really good work” as actors.

She questions whether the industry wants an “unlimited market for students to study acting” and “who decides how many actors [need] to be trained” and argues that increasing the availability of acting courses actually limits rather than improves access for working-class students.

“If you’ve got, say, 17 schools which everyone thinks are providing the right kind of training, and you say, ‘you’ve got to get into one of those in order to be a professional actor’, then you [need to] make sure there are adequate progression pathways for students of working-class families or diverse ethnicities to make sure they get every chance possible to get into those drama schools,” Strong says.

“But if you say, ‘don’t worry about going there, you can go to [a university acting course]’, then actually, what are the chances of those people from diverse communities actually having a career in the business? None.”

Strong argues that the FDS – which did not respond to The Stage’s requests for comment – is “the best method we have” currently for recognising quality of drama schools because it has a set of standards that its members agree on.

‘I’m interested in students going to schools with a proven track record of success, along with current evidence these schools are consistently producing graduates who become working actors, technicians and production design artists’ – Actor David Mumeni, who runs Open Door

Actor David Mumeni, who runs drama schools audition organisation Open Door, however, argues that it would be useful to have a body responsible for accrediting all drama schools. “With so many new things popping up that say they’re drama schools, I think it’s important to have quality marks because there’s quite confusing messaging for young actors,” he tells The Stage.

He argues that it is important for the industry to define “what we call a drama school” and says training – as opposed to classes – should involve a holistic journey for students.

In terms of selecting partner schools for Open Door, Mumeni says: “I’m interested in students going to schools with a proven track record of success, along with current evidence that these schools are consistently producing graduates who become working actors, technicians and production design artists.” Mumeni adds it is also important that the drama schools Open Door works with have robust safeguarding policies in place.

Unless and until a more holistic approach to accreditation is introduced, his advice to aspiring drama school students is: start by looking within the FDS and then consider whether the work recent alumni of the schools are undertaking tallies with your own aspirations.