The EU-funded Med Culture programme has published a study on the current status of higher education, vocational training and apprenticeship for artistic disciplines in three Arab countries: Lebanon, Algeria and Palestine.

The report identified challenges including unfavourable policy environments for encouraging art education development, social objections to the value of art education, a traditional and rigid approach to teaching, and a growing exodus of artists and art operators from the three countries to Europe and the Gulf. 

The study examines the different programmes and degrees offered in higher education and VET, explores the procedures to obtain certification for artistic curricula and the procedures for introducing new modules and disciplines, and concludes with recommendations for improving the situation in each country and regionally.

Med Culture is an EU-funded regional programme that kicked off in February 2014 with the aim of sustaining the creation of institutional and social environments to support culture as a vector for freedom of expression and sustainable development. This should be accomplished by reinforcing the capacities of the public and private cultural sectors as vectors for democratisation, and economic and social development for societies in the Southern Mediterranean. 

Med Culture is part of the regional programme “Media and culture for development in the Southern Mediterranean” which has been allocated a total budget of EUR 17 million over a four-year period, of which EUR 9 million is for the award of grants on a co-financing basis, and EUR 8 million for one capacity-development mechanism on media (Med Media) and one capacity development mechanism on culture (Med Culture). 

Read more 

Press release

Full report 

Med Culture website and Facebook page

EU Neighbours South – Media, civil society and culture