Students voice is actively stifled by NAS management

Management at the National Art School actively discourages any form of proactive student organisation. NAS management does this to preserve the status-quo, being an art school primarily run to support practicing artists who are their staff. This situation is predictable given the proffession relationships involved, the artists/staff being the peers of management. Students needs and concerns are quashed in an number of practical ways. One being the active discouragement of any student union or organisation. This results in practically no student life at the school. This leads anti social,competetive and even aggressive behavior between students because they are not encouraged to socialise by management's complete inaction of addressing these needs of students. A students voice is also stifled by management by the exclusion of any form of funded school magazine by management policy. Unlike other art schools whose high quality colour school magazines provide a forum to promote student work and are also offer a way of communicating issues,events and prizes to students, the NAS management does not see students needs or even their artwork as important enough to promote or address. Compared to the work made by the practicing artists it employs, students' work is seen as unimportant. This plays out in ways like the completely unpromoted graduation shows that management refuses to fund any publicity for. The artistic intentions of students work is completely ignored as unimportant by the school.
Another way that student needs are relegated to the bottom of managements concerns is that their in absolutely no procedure for communicating with students. New, changed or cancelled lectures are not notified, and events at the school do not get notified to students and so on. Management has not in any way addressed the need to communicate with the student body by any means whatsoever, being an organised noticeboard, hand out or communication in any way . This is because the needs of students, even their educational needs, are not seen as a priority by management, unlike the needs of the staff/artists who have a new million dollar staff only area and many funded private functions and parties throughout the year.

The needs of students will not be addressed under current management, who in fact actively discourage student participation at the school. Fonas does not act in any way in the interests of students but as another arm of present management.