When George Osborne travelled to China in September, he took with him gifts of British artistic and cultural enterprise. He announced major projects on Shakespeare, Hockney and British landscape painting. It is British creative talent that appeals to China and the world.
For how long will the Chancellor and his successors be able to do this? For how long will we be able to promote abroad our cultural and creative talent, when at home they are being starved? The Chancellor understands the value and importance of the arts, but sadly others remain unconvinced.
In an article last week Toby Young talks of ‘bunkum’ coming from the arts sector about the failure to give the arts a proper place in our education system. He quotes the Department for Education’s statistics saying that there has been a one per cent rise in young people taking an arts GCSE subject over the past five years. In response, the Cultural Learning Alliance point out, quite reasonably, that the Joint Council for Qualifications’ annual results tables show a reduction of 13 per cent. At the same time, the EBacc subjects of geography and history have shown a rise of 17 per cent and 12 per cent respectively.
Statistics, however, are not the real issue. Even assuming that the Department for Education is correct, is one per cent good enough? The creative economy is now five per cent of the national economy and is growing faster than other sectors. We are proud of our architects, artists, theatre and film directors and fashion designers. We should provide the educational framework which provides an opportunity to succeed in these fields as well as in traditional subjects such as maths, english and history.
The experience of teachers with whom we work at Tate suggests that there is a problem. They are telling us that they are worried. They are worried that if they teach the arts, they won’t be classed as ‘outstanding’ by OFSTED. They are worried that, if they are to be judged by university entries, the focus placed on ‘core’ subjects means that they shouldn’t offer the arts. Arts teachers are worried about losing their jobs in the face of declining numbers of specialist teachers. Students are worried that choosing the arts will damage their academic profile.
Toby Young suggests that the arts practitioners have an anti-Conservative bias. However, the problem is that no government, either Labour or Conservative, has recognised that the arts are core, not ‘nice to have’. Toby Young suggests that arts leaders are posturing as ‘radicals’ by their proposal that the arts should be given equal priority to other subjects. However, there is really nothing very radical in this idea. The arts have a place in other education systems across the world. Given our present success in the creative industries we are missing a great opportunity for Britain by not making the arts mainstream here. Only last week the new Head of Eton argued that he wanted to create emotional intelligence as well as academic brilliance, citing the arts as an important component. If they are good enough for Eton, why are the arts secondary elsewhere?
Britain has the cultural confidence of the world. What we seek is cultural confidence in the classroom. This does not need to come at the expense of other subjects, such as languages, english, history, science and maths. The simple request, as Toby Young says, is that the arts are given parity with STEM subjects. Why deny this? Schools, parents and children should have the chance to choose the subjects and develop the talent in which Britain has won a global reputation.
Comments