By British Council in Georgia

24 September 2019 17:18

Creative Spark Programme enabled us to make changes impossible for decades. From now on, our university and our students will surely become really ჩompetitive in the creative world where creativity and entrepreneurship are equally important for success.

Tamar Tamta Shavgulidze, Quality Assurance Chief Coordinator of the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts shares her story about how CREATIVE SPARK enabled the Academy to change their curriculum in favour of developing entrepreneurial skills.

 “From the initial partnership proposal, we were keen to achieve a partnership which would help us to “level-up” and enrich our university curriculum in compliance with the 21st century needs. Our consortium helped us to add an absolutely new subject - Enterprise for students in Bachelor and Master in Arts programmes.

We didn’t stop there - and have upgraded Marketing and Management courses and made them truly beneficial and relevant for TSAA students. These changes enable students to have a clear understanding of the Creative Economy, applying creative skills and ideas effectively to be relevant in the business world. We feel confident that we will be able to establish the full- scale Creative Spark Business Incubator no later than 2020.

With the help of the Creative Spark programme, we designed eight new syllabi for the Autumn Term of 2018-2019 academic year. Two leading faculties were in the spotlight of change: the Media Art Faculty and the Faculty of Art History and Theory. We are now working hard to revise the textbooks for these faculties in time for the new academic year.

Next year we are going to upgrade the PHD programmes and feel confident to establish interdisciplinary seminars in Enterprise and Culture, Creative Economy, Creative Industries, Enterprise and Art. Creative Spark Programme enabled us to make changes impossible for decades. From now on, our university and our students will surely become competitive in the world where creativity and entrepreneurship are critical for success.”

ABOUT THE PROGRAMME:

Creative Spark is a five-year initiative to support the international university and institutional partnerships to develop enterprise skills and creative economy across seven countries in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan), South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia) and Ukraine through UK support.