Having run a professional recording studio for the last 12 years, I have heard a lot of talk about the lack of education within the industry. This lack is painfully obvious — but not a great deal seems to be done about it.

Two years ago, we decided to improve the level of the teaching that we offered and to include areas that would be appropriate for new entrants into the professional business.

As a result, people who were already in the industry started coming on the courses, including producers who wanted to be aware of the engineering side, and A & R administrative staff who were sent so that they could be more in tune with what was happening at the studios they were booking time in.

This encouraged us to aim the courses at a higher level and we are structuring our modular courses so there is more coherence.

There has been tremendous support from manufacturers, suppliers and some studio managers, almost every side of the industry, in fact, including the media — but not from our professional organisations.

They say that they have no machinery for approving or disapproving our courses, and so they don't wish to become involved.

We have pointed out that the Gateway courses are an integral part of North London Polytechnic's year-long recording course, that we set and mark the examination papers and that the poly is a member of the APRS, but our courses cannot be recognised.

It would be good, when trying to better opportunities within the industry, to feel that the members of that profession supported the attempt.

Some colleges and universities run excellent courses, but I am appalled at the number of establishments that advertise training for careers in the recording industry. I know a lot of young people with pieces of paper that say they've taken a particular course — but this is not what we're about.

It's strange that so much of the pioneering in education has been left to us. If I weren't part of what Gateway stands for, I would be appalled, but I love the challenge of taking it on and doing it. I would like to see what we are doing become part of a bigger education structure within the industry which could take care of all its training needs.

The industry does need more formal education. I know that structuring courses can take a long time, particularly if you are to ensure that those courses are going to be viable for the future. It would appear that our professional organisations are not able to do this.

In our turn, we have been approached by the North London Poly and other colleges around the country to work out courses based on one-day release throughout the year.

We are in the process of writing to all studio managers, manufacturers and sales organisations to establish what their needs are so that we can evolve a course that will still be valid as we enter the nineties.

One supplier, whose staff we've been training, commented recently that, 'every pioneer gets an ass full of arrows'. That has been our experience, to a certain extent, but we are still looking forward with confidence in what we are doing.

With or without approval!

Dave Ward founded Gateway with friends in 1974 and started teaching the first Gateway courses three years ago.

The range of courses at the Gateway School of Recording & Music Technology include FM synthesis/DX programming, primary multitrack, advanced multitrack and primary synthesiser.