Overview of the Instituion
Our Mission Statement:
We aim to equip individuals with the skills and practical experience they require to handle the entire creative process of fashion – from concept to consumer. Personalised attention to individual students ensures growth and originality. We strive to produce reflective design practitioners who are ready to enter the fashion industry with the utmost expertise and confidence.
Goals and Vision
Our goal is to empower learners through training and skills development, thereby allowing them to become economically independent and transfer their skills to others. The institution’s founder, Elizabeth Galloway, recognised that the fashion industry needed educated and well-trained individuals to maintain the high standards of the fashion industry, both locally and internationally. The academy was thus established in 1996 to address this need. Elizabeth is passionate about educating students and ensuring that they are equipped with the necessary skills to add value to the local industry, and also to make their mark internationally. In addition, the academy acknowledges and promotes the importance of academic competencies, which may give a stronger voice to fashion designers among other professionals.
From Concept to Consumer
Our mission, vision and goals are beautifully summed up in the phrase: from concept to consumer. After careful consideration, the academy’s founders and directors approved the mission statement, which underpins the planning and development of the learning programme. Appropriate resources ¬(intellectual, literacy, financial and vocational support in conjunction with a well-designed institutional infrastructure) have been deployed to ensure successful delivery of our courses. Through internal and external quality assurance, we are able to assess and review the institution’s mission and goals regularly.
The concept of continuous learning is an integral part of the mission statement. Our goal is to enable graduates to work in the ever-changing local and international fashion industry through observation, discovery, continuous learning, self-evaluation and self-reflection. By developing these skills, graduates will hopefully be able to conceptualise their own cutting-edge designs and deliver them to the industry and consumers.
The institution furthermore strives to produce a calibre of designer who is ready to enter the fashion industry with proficiency and confidence in the subject matter. By providing learners with an opportunity to develop practical, vocational, creative and commercial skills, our programme hopes to produce graduates who are able to work effectively in the industry and excel as fashion designers of the future.
Teaching and Learning Strategies
Since the mid-90s, the Elizabeth Galloway Academy of Fashion Design has been training individuals who want to enter the fashion industry or become fashion-design entrepreneurs. Practical experience plays an important part in our programmes, as it ensures that students gain industry-specific knowledge*. Furthermore, an emphasis on theoretical reflection creates insight and understanding, which allows facilitators to adjust their teaching strategies accordingly.
More recently, the institution has started focusing on developing learners’ self-confidence so that they are able to cope with the demanding, fast-paced fashion industry. In order to support this new way of working, we have brought in additional resources – such as a library with internet access and use of the Worth Global Style Network (WGSN), as well as a full-time librarian who offers research support. Simultaneously, the staff body has grown and existing staff members have been encouraged to further their studies.
Our teaching and learning strategy is underpinned by the idea that teaching and learning should be reciprocal. The facilitators aim to provide learning and teaching that is relevant and heuristic. Learners are taught a practical skill, then they are guided as to the why, how, when and where to apply it. Learners are challenged through a brief, task or question in order to reach a certain outcome. They are then required to complete the challenge through self-direction, exploration and guidance from a facilitator. Tasks are designed to promote creative learning, encourage portable skills and endorse informed and relevant choices. Evaluation of the outcomes through assessment and self-reflection helps in the overall preparation for work in the industry.
Industry experience plays an important role in ensuring that training does not happen in a vacuum. The theoretical, practical component and experiential components play equally important roles in our teaching and learning strategy.
* Ginns et al (as cited in Norton, 2009) reports that practical experience plays an important part in learning and teaching but is not adequate, as it results in achieving only the first (and most basic) level in Blooms Taxonomy of learning – knowledge. Winkler (as cited in Norton, 2009) is in agreement with Ginns et al (as cited in Norton, 2009), as she reports the importance of theoretical reflection in creating insight and understanding, which allows facilitators to make different conceptual links in their teaching and learning strategies and students to integrate the knowledge. It is also deemed important by Oblinger and Rush (1997) as they report that as society and economies change it is important to ensure that higher education is geared to meet these new needs and challenges.
