Comparative Study of Curriculum of Undergraduate Sculpture Program in Iran and Five Other Countries

Educational systems around the world should be aligned with and updated to active cycle of art outside the universities on the one hand, and should create vibrant academic settings to motivate students on the other hand. How should be the art education in Iran? To answer this question, this research compares art and sculpture education in Iran and five other universities. This research is qualitative and its conclusions are based on interpretation. In the first part, general problems and difficulties of education and arts education in Iran have been examined, and in the second part the experience of five universities who had been encountered with difficulties in dealing with public education of art has been investigated. In the third part, a proposed project is suggested for education of arts by looking at arts and sculpture education in Iran. The main tree challenges in art education include: fostering independence in artist’s personality, relationship with native culture, and being connected to the time. In this curriculum, to foster independence in artist’s character, it is better to pay more attention to interactive teaching methods, development of personal expression and critical thinking regarding the choice of courses. To interact with the historical identity, it is better to be more concerned with the ways of teaching history of Iran, eastern art history, the possibility of practical experience in the art of Iran, as well as understanding the geographical context and social issues of these days. Paying attention to the nature of art in the past fifty years is necessary for updating the lessons, which means moving art from formal trends to conceptual ones. For the courses may meet the needs of today’s art, it is necessary to consider the nature of art after 1960s, i.e. putting away the formal trends in favor of concept. Artists from this period onwards, with every work of art with proposed some questions about the meaning of art, to the extent that visual arts became much similar to theories about art. Therefore it is necessary to include some courses so that students may become familiar with the challenges of the meaning of art and art work, such as art criticism and ideas in art. Moreover, the boundaries of four groups of art were vanished in this period and visual arts were combined with applied arts, performing arts and literature. Media presence on the art scene expanded the boundaries in favor of possibilities of art. In addition to combination of the arts, other issues from humanities and natural science fields wereincluded in art. As a result, the focus on the field of visual arts present in the modern era may change. For this purpose, interdisciplinary relationships can be taken into consideration for proposing optional courses. Furthermore, the experiences of other countries show that courses are adjusted periodicallyat intervals with some change from a year to the next one. Therefore it is necessary to devise a mechanism for changing and revising of the courses.